green briar. in s. P.A the locals call it cats claw briar. wicked stuff. if you get wrapped in it you literally need to cut yourself out of it. i bet i lost a quart of blood that week hunting down there. the deer would bed in the patch and we would throw a osage seed ball in there scaring them out. was some fast action shooting with buck shot.
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Multiflora rose is very spiky and horrible but I would not plant it! It spreads like crazy I believe from birds and other wildlife. It will pop up far away and where you don’t want it; then you will have a lot of trouble getting rid of it. It’s also considered a tier I invasive.
I think blackberry is probably better, even though there are some that are considered invasive (anything with Himalayan blackberry involved - but my understanding is that this does very poorly on the east coast). You can buy some thorny and aggressive cultivars. If you want something that is a fancy fruiting type the blackberry/raspberry thread has some that are really strong growers and not quite so aggressive as Clark’s blackberry.
This year, I bought two plants of clark’s blackberry for an area I need an aggressive grower. I was warned it’s aggressive and can pop up shoots 20 feet away. Even with all that warning, I am shocked at how vigorously it is growing. I will say that I chose it partly because my soil is similar to Clark’s -alkaline.
@krismoriah - what is your soil like?
I know my parents who live in MD (@EJh does your mom also live there?) have acidic soil.
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Ironically I’ve heard new greenbriar shoots are very tasty. Along with poison ivy, it’s a native I have no problem keeping away from my property.
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Yes my parents live in western MD, I live in central MD. So like 45 min drive for me.
If I can get a hold of Clarks blackberries I’d do those, but I’m also thinking of Kiowa blackberry too. Or a mix of both. I’m not sure how acidic their soil is, but it won’t grow blueberries 
@benthegirl did you get them from an individual or a nursery that had them? If you don’t mind telling.
It’s funny, I looked at Google maps and there’s a random car parked in the area that she wants the thorny stuff planted lol.
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I got them from @39thparallel. At this time of year, it might be better to see if you can get some kiowa plants, since the larger size seem to be readily available and not overly expensive. But perhaps Mike will chime in. Then you can assess after this summer and see how well they grow and decide if you want to try Clark’s.
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I reached out to 39th already told me to check back in Feb. So that’s my plan unless I randomly stumble into some in the meantime. But yeah the Kiowa are the plan in the interim. Ediblelandscape has them and they have their 20% off in person sale June 1st. So I’m gonna make the drive there and have my credit card on fire most likely.
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Sorry I’m late to the party folks. I’ve been wondering what this “greenbrier” plant is that y’all are talking about, and it turns out that it is the same as the smilax that we are fighting against in this area. Years ago I did manage to dig out an extensive root system after transplanting the three azalea bushes that they were growing up and through, but I have recently decided to go chemical on them. @disc4tw you are welcome to come down to Georgia and eat them if you wish, but I’m just going to terminate them with extreme prejudice! 
My vote would be to grow trifoliate orange or one of the thorny roses that I see in our area which do not propagate wildly by wildlife like I hear some of y’all’s roses do.
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the canes are green with hook shaped thorns. the harder you try to pull away, the deeper the thorns dig in.
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I can dig you a couple if you like.
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“green briar. in s. P.A the locals call it cats claw briar”
I have researched a bit and that’s exactly where I think Clark’s “Healthberry” came from. They were Nanticoke Blackberries, although @clarkinks has adapted them to a colder USDA zone. I call them Bloodberry. They make me think of Little Shop of Horrors’
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*Berberis julianae, Wintergreen Barberry has very large thorns, is evergreen and grows to 6 or 7 feet high and 3 to 4 ft wide. Can be pruned to a lower height but requires very thick leather gloves or the cutting of new growth before thorns harden. It’s impenetrable. It does not send up suckers so it stays neat.
Thorns are 2 inches long and hard as nails.
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for months after hunting down there i had nightmares about being entangled in the stuff. the vines are thin and flexible. once the tip ‘‘hooks’’ you, you have to back out the way you came. if you try and twist out of it, it will just wrap around you and impale you in thorns. i can see how this stuff was the thing of foreboding tales of plants that capture children if they got too close. if you got wrapped up in a bunch of canes it would be really hard to get out without a knife to cut your way out. imagine the pioneers that 1st ran into a thicket of them for the 1st time and struggled to get out. it would seem as if the plant intentionally trapped you.
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Maybe Chesapeake?
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Yes, That looks similar. I think @clarkinks said his original material come form the East coast. There is significant genetic variation in his blackberries from one patch to the next. I would think Chesapeake and Nanticoke are basically the same plant.
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This is good to know! My two plants are different looking - but equally vigorous!
When the second one came up about 5 days after the first, I though maybe I hadn’t done a good job clearing a spot and something else was coming up. It quickly became clear it was blackberry, and a good grower, but the leaves on the two are interestingly different.
Wineberry at my house is soooo disappointing. It pops up everywhere but doesn’t grow that well. The plants are really anemic. It must be my soil/climate. It struggles to produce fruit. After hearing so many rail against it, I was expecting something I could get fruit from for free… I even tried coddling a few plants fertilizing, watering and protecting them, but no dice.
Things that are growing too well at my house: invasive japanese honeysuckle, autumn olive, multiflora rose. I should enter a competition for largest multiflora rose - I recently found one that I swear is the size of a small house.
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I guess Chesapeake was cross between a named variety and the East Coast wild Blackberry so. it may be genetically different then Nanticoke I have not looked deeply into the origins of early named Blackberries in the US. I would guess, they brought some named blackberries form Europe and crossed them with the native plants.
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It does well here after left alone for a few yrs.
If you buy named varieties from box stores that are in bags they are mostly wineberries. I have seen heritage, fall gold, boysenberry, and brandywine all are wineberries.
My best ones are growing in the worst conditions… poor rocky soil with lots of competition and no hope of water.
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Pyracantha might be a good one, looks similar to the mentioned barberry, has nice red berries and attracts birds; in my experience the thorns definitely suck and it spreads invasively if you let it. We had a small patch in the middle of some bamboo, I’ve killed off the bamboo by repeatedly cutting it down, but the pyracantha keeps wanting to survive with the same treatment, it has to be dug up to remove.
Jujube is another one that’s got thorns, not huge thorns but definitely not fun to touch; it’s edible, and I believe it will spread.
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I would consider flowering quince (various selections of Chaenomeles). There are both thorny and thornless selections, but even the thornless ones would prove quite effective as they are so densely multi-trunk that they would easily make an impenetrably dense barrier if planted in a line. Bonus is that they are beautiful when in bloom and if you plant a mix of cultivars you will also get hard fruits which can be cooked down into a sauce which tastes like lemons.
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