Steve Kind wrote:
....
I think you may have hit the nail on the head Songbird - about three years
ago we had the patio re-laid as the roots of a silver birch had made it
badly uneven. The contractor knew not to damage the roots of the tree (we
had the whole area raised 3 inches on cement dabs) but unfortunately, his
assistant ripped out a long run of blackberry root before he could stop
him I rested the briar for a year after that and hoped it had recovered
as it grew it's usual single stem for the next two years.

I have never fertilised it other than to occasionally mulch the one foot
square it emerges from with comfrey leaves.

ah, sorry, that is almost impossible to know from
here how much damage was done, or how the patio was
constructed (even if the roots were alive and intact).
that it is showing a decline isn't a good sign, but
after dying back to some point the plant may recover
and regain what it was before or if the patio was
constructed in some manner to limit growth it may
only reach a certain limit and stay there.

it is too late in the season to fertilize it
but next spring when it starts to grow give the
plant a feed of some decent organic material with
more P and K than N. not too heavy a feeding, but
some to help it along. then see what happens.

if the whole plant dies i would be curious if you
eventually will get fungi pushing up through the
patio. in retrospect it likely would have been
better to remove the roots and start over with a
chunk of the original plant so that it could get
re-established again under the new conditions.


songbird