I do not know what that is, you have a very different set of weeds in Texas than we do on the west coast. Looks like some kind of blackberry or other Rubus sp. We have a lot of different species of Rubus here, I'm going by the palmate leaflets and what look like small thorns on the stems. A flower would help with ID but it's September, and I bet someone in TX already knows what it is without needing a flower.

Dumping dirt on top of perennial weeds does not get rid of them and does not make them easier to pull. They're still rooted in the hard dirt underneath, now they're even deeper and harder to get to. I once had a client whose landscaper did that to her bermuda grass, dumped a foot of topsoil mix on top of it to 'get rid' of it. Year and a half later it was all back, and I was hired to do the weekly maintenance, and there was no digging it out, the roots were now out of reach.

New weeds, sure, will be easier to pull from the new dirt, but he's buried these in a protective layer and now roundup is your only hope. Thanks a lot, guy!

You will need to keep hitting the weeds with round-up until they are really gone, and hold off planting the roses until then. Nothing else to be done.

Does look like some kind of blackberry.

you may need a better landscaper. That one apparently didn't know what he was doing.

Please let up know your results when you do plant your roses (i.e. whether there are residual Round_Up effects).

I wondered if it could be some type of berry vine. My house backs up to an office building, so I was able to walk back behind the houses on my street. The 5th house down from me has more of it coming from under their fence than anywhere else. I don't know if all the other neighbors are staying on top of it and he's not or if it's actually coming from his house. About 7 houses down from me, there is a field so I thought it could also be coming from there. I think it must go deep under ground because I have it occassionally pop up in a narrow bed nearer the front of my house. The bed is surrounded by concrete, so it has to be coming from underground. So far I haven't seen any flowers, but maybe it's not the time of year for that.

Laurie

One thing I forgot to mention is the landscaper sprayed the bed with Round Up before he added the new dirt. I was hoping that would take care of it and it may have except it's creeping back in from the other yards.

Laurie

Don't know if this would work for you, but I deal with some sort of obnoxious junk tree that pops up in my flower beds and outside my fence; once they get going, they're impossible to pull out. The leaves are similar to yours. I used the lasagna method, put cardboard down, then about 3" of mulch. I still get a few, but so far it has really helped.

Good luck, and if you find something else that works, would love to hear!

I'm certain it's a species of Rubus, but I don't recognize it.

Take a sample of the weed to your county extension agent or contact Texas A&M for intructions on sending it for identification and suggestions for getting rid of it.

It's a wild blackberry. I have them all over here. And some are in my rose beds, and it's the dickens trying to pull them out between the rose thorns. Round-up won't do the job. You need to get the tough stuff that's made for woody vines. Good thing, though, is that the fall is the best time of the year to spray them. Supposedly, this is the only time of the year that they will 'suck up' the herbicide to their roots.

Good luck.

I think it might be Himalayan blackberry, Rubus armeniacus or Rubus discolor, an agressive and noxious weed (as you have discovered). Here's some info...

Here is a link that might be useful: control of Rubus armeniacus

holleygarden - Do you know what the stuff is called that's specifically for woody vines and can you get it from places like Home Depot and Lowes?

Hoovb & Yorkrose Thank to you both, I think I may have ID'd it. I did a search for varieties of Rubus and came up with one called rubus trivalis or Southern Dewberry that I think looks like the variety I have. After Hoovb's link, I'm afraid I'll never get rid of this stuff. I've tried digging it up and it goes so deep, it's hard to get to the end of it.

Do y'all think anyone plants this on purpose or is this strictly a wild growing plant?

karl - great idea! I will certainly contact them.

Laurie

I have plants like this every so often. I assume the seeds come in bird droppings.

If it's native to the Himalayas that means someone most likely imported it on purpose at least once (not unlike Rosa multiflora or Rosa laevigata, no?)

And the scourge of the South, Kudzu, which is slowly adapting to cooler climates and spreading North.

I'm assuming you can eat the berries, so do you think people purposely grow it for that reason? Like I mentioned before, there is one house on my street that has quite a bit of it coming from under their fence. I'm just wondering if they introduced it into the neighborhood or if it came from the wooded area and they just haven't done anything to get rid of it.

Laurie

If you read the whole pdf in the link, it says that though it's called himalayan, it's really from western europe and was imported in the 19th century as an edible fruit, and went wild here. Then other varieties were developed that were tastier and more productive, so it survived here as a noxious weed rather than a food crop.

There's also good advice in the link page 10 I think on the most effective use of round-up to kill it, when and how.

sorry - I was having one of those moments when I wrote that earlier. :) It's Brush-B-Gone by Ortho. If your Lowes or Home Depot doesn't carry it, try your local hardware store. I haven't bought any this year, but have gotten it at Lowes in the past.

Thanks, Holleygarden!

Thanks again, Hoov - I've printed the article, so I can read it in detail.

Laurie

The only thing that gets rid of blackberries is "Crossbow". I have been living on land with blackberries for 30 years. I have tried pulling, cutting, mowing, burning and other herbicides, but Crossbow is the only thing that kills them. If you use it, wear gloves, and a respirator and paint it on the vines. If it touches the roses, they will die. But it will kill the blackberries. Spring and fall are the best times to use it.
Kathy

Thanks, Kathy. I'm just wondering if this is a battle I can't win if my neighbors don't do anything about it in their yard.

Laurie

I've successfully rid my yard of ground ivy (creeping Charlie) by constantly removing plants and the repeated use of a broadleaf herbicide. I have to be vigilent as it continue to try to grow under the fence from my neighbor's yard. He really doesn't care as it's green and doesn't require mowing.
As long as your neighbors put up with it, you'll be constantly fighting the battle.
Good luck!

It's definitely not himalayan blackberry. That is one of our most common invasive weeds here, equivalent of Kudzu in the Deep South. I am all too intimately familiar with himalayan blackberry. Himalayan blackberry is much more robust than this plant, with bigger rounder leaflets and thorns like fish hooks. Nothing coy or shy about himalayan blackberry!

That said it is a Rubus of some kind, just not that kind. Brush B Gon works quite well on all the many species of Rubus around here.

And you can do yourself a favor by getting a shovel out right now. Those woody vines tend to have roots that run all over the place and if you can pull out a five foot section of it, that's more you won't need to worry about and it's also rewarding in a personal way because you're destroying your enemy!

I have a similar plant here that comes in from my neighbor's yard and it pops up randomly. This year I just ripped out the roots wherever they lead and it turned out they'd made a network all over the place. Your landscaper was an idiot for telling you additional dirt would smother it. The only kind of weed that you kill with plastic or dirt like that are things like dandelions - superficial weeds. Woody plants are entirely different. But because they store nutrients in their roots for the winter, applying Roundup or whatever now is most effective.

The problem is that the roots are so deep. I started out trying to dig them up, but they're so far down. I did get out and do some "chemical" shopping and internet research yesterday. I compared all the products that claimed they killed weedy vines and discovered that Triclopyr is more potent than Glyphosphate (Round Up). The highest potency of Triclopyr I found was in Image Brush & Vine killer (8%), but it was in a pre-mixed bottle for $30. Today my mission is to see if I can find something similar in a concentrate. They didn't have the Brush B Gon at Lowes, but I looked it up online and it has .7% Triclopyr.

Laurie

Some chemicals are only sold in highly diluted form because that lowers the labelled toxicity rating. If you follow instructions, you will be delivering the same concentration regardless of the dilution in the packaged product. In other words, properly diluted concentrate will be chemically the same as ready-to-use (but should be cheaper).

Laurie: if you get new plants from the neighbor's seeds, they will be easy to get rid of while young.

Just want to give an update in case anyone else is dealing with some type of Rubus. Home Depot has another product by Ortho called Ortho Max Poison Ivy & Tough Brush Killer. It's stronger than the Ortho Brush B Gon.

Laurie