Fruit Bushes, because why not?

Well after a long day of spring garden clean-up and planting and finally get all my pots planted and the sidewalk cleared off again, I was very ready for showering and relaxing after a hard day's work when...

...husband comes home from the hardware store with raspberry and blackberry bushes.

"ooh, can you plant these too?!!"

Um...where, exactly?!

Why in our fruit bush section, of course!

See, in the fall I had brought home a blueberry bush without realizing how big it would get, so that ruled out the edible garden. So we decided, what the heck, why not just dig into our yard some more!

And so we planted it and a soon to follow brother along the back sidewalk.

They kind of failed. A lot.

But somehow he felt other berries would do better, so I sighed and pulled back out the shovel.

I also happened to look at the tag to see how big they would get. I knew blueberries and raspberries can get like 3-4 or 6-8 feet depending on the variety; I believe the raspberry was on the higher end of that spectrum if I recall properly. What I do recall exactly is looking at the blackberry tag.

"[HUSBAAAAAND???!!] Twelve feet?!!! Did you know this thing can get up to twelve feet tall and wide?!!"

He gave one of those half truly surprised and half trying to look innocent expressions: something like, "well, I knew it got big, but not THAT big".

So we laughed (me probably a bit more uneasily), he assured me he'd keep it trimmed and in the ground it went. With this mischievous branch shooting off in a rebellious confidence which he likened to his dear wife. 

After a few months he purchased tall tomato cages to contain the unruly fellows.

So here we are at the end of summer with our bushes proudly marching up towards four or so feet...

Pardon the hideous trash bins behind, but the white was the only way I could capture the branches reaching their little hearts out to all corners...

We did get about 3 blackberries, which was exciting. 

So we shall see what the spring brings for these grossly oversized bushes growing about 2 feet from the sidewalk!