Blackberry bush

Just bought my first blackberry bush yesterday. Was just wondering if any of you experts have some tips for a newbie. Any info and tips that you could share would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance. Kim

What type of Blackberry? A lot will matter on the type. I have canes with lots of thorns so I have them under a bedroom window - better then an alarm. Give them plenty or room, full sun, and lots of water.

Hey there. Where is Red Oak?? The tag says Brazos if that makes any sense to you. It also says Rubus spp. Zarza. We were just wondering about how big they grow and what care we need to give it. Thanks for any info that you can share.

This message was edited Feb 24, 2005 7:58 PM

I recently read something interesting about blackberries on fruitsandberries.com. They sell Doyle's Thornless Blackberries that are supposed to produced bumper crops. They do not recommend planting blackberries in any soil where you have already grown potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant or strawberries because these plants are susceptible to many of the diseases that will also affect blackberries. Any of the above mentioned crops should be rotated when planted near blackberries. They also suggest that you do not plant blackberries within 1000 ft of raspberries because of the viruses they are so prone to having. At that rate I would have to plant blackberries 8 lots down from me!!!! They did say that some people have planted them as close as 100 ft and not reported problems-----but you must become very familiar with what a virus looks like in your raspberries and get rid of them if they show any signs. The website is very informative and when I emailed them I got a reply the next day.

Thanks for the website I will look into it.

So sorry it has taken so long. Brazos are great for our area. I am just south of Dallas in Ellis Co. They can take the heat well and tend to like our clay soil. It is best to only pick blackberries or raspberries - if for nothing else other then room! I have had the best luck when I had several diffrent types close together. I will warn you between the birds, our dog(yes he loves them too), and our son we do not get many - and the more I plant the more they eat.

You absolutely can plant blackberries and raspberries in the same vicinity. You don't want your store bought "certified disease and virus free" cultivars to be infected by wild or existing brambles. Some "experts" suggest 1000 ft., some 300 ft., some say 100ft....

avoid the areas that have had vegetable gardens in the last 3 years.

I too have my blackberries planted within maybe 30 feet of my red raspberries. What i was told was not to plant red raspberries and Blackcaps or blackraspberries close to each other so my Blackcaps are about 300 feet away from the red ones, and have not had any problems in 10 years. DonnaS

I am new to blackberries, too. We just got two "Triple Crown" plants. Does anyone know if we can expect any fruit this year? How do I know what kind it is, there seem to be two kinds of blackberries, those that bear on this year's cane (forgot what that is called) and those that bear on next year's. Does that make sense. And do I need to know?

Thanks for clearing this up for me!!!

Clementine
z7-8

Does anybody know what happened to www.fruitsandberries.com and/or who might be sellign Doyle's Thorless blackberries now?

Thanks,
katiebear

Doyle and Triple Crown compete every year for most productive and best flavor. But note that this is not in Texas!!

The varieties bred in Arkansas such as Kiowa and Brazos are supposed to do well in S.E. and Central Texas.

I just checked FruitsandBerries.com and it seems to be up again.

Triple Crown was the only blackberry on our farm (tame or wild!) that produced a crop of fruit last year. Here in Indiana (and the whole east, of course) we had that freeze in early April that wiped our farm crops and tree fruits out. All we had were fall red raspberries (God's gift to gardeners who live in areas prone to late freezes, like our valley), blueberries (half crop mostly, though Polaris made a full crop), and a small crop of Triple Crown blackberries that we did not sell but ate fresh and froze some for wintertime (I love looking at them in the freezer, but with so few bags, I keep putting them back for something special...we should just eat them!). Most of the bloosoms were blasted, but it still came through. Years like that suck, but it can really teach you a lot about your plants and which cultivars to add more of. We're zone 5b.

Our property has a big patch of what looks to me to be blackberry bushes. They had lots and lots of blossoms on them last spring -- then we, too, got hit with that late freeze at Easter time. All the blossoms were gone and none were produced later. So, this year I am again waiting to see what these are. If the same thing happens again this year, I will conclude that whatever they are I'm not going to see any fruit on them.

So, my question is: what is a good blackberry for this area that would be late enough to avoid this last freeze problem and still produce with the heat and humidity we have?

My grandma lived in the MO Ozarks down by Mountain View. I remember her property had huge patches of blackberries that produced all summer. I sure wish I knew where to get some like those!

Karen

I just got in under the wire on the Gurney's $25 coupon. I orders 3 each Triple Crown and Arapaho thornless blackberries. I used my $25 free to get a Royal Star Magnolia tree. I don't expect a crop of berries from the blackberries this year as blackberries bear on second year canes. We've raised the thorny ones for years. Some starts were given to us by someone who had a UPick patch. All he could tell me was that they have an Indian name and he had to drive to Arkansas to get the starts years before that. I know they are wonderful large tasty berries. I have heard that the thornless aren't as tastey as the old fashion throrny ones. Time will tell me which this family prefers. We will have both kinds as I doubt I would destroy the thorny ones even if we don't pick them ourselves. The poultry and wild birds will enjoy them.

glendalekid,
I don't think any cultivar of blackberry has been (or could be) bred to withstand such a huge fluctuation in weather. The Triple Crown, though it did produce some for our family, was by market standards a wash. There was no saleable crop. Now, if I had a larger planting, I may have had some to sell, but that wouldn't have offset the year's labor in working with them and keeping them up. I would suggest that you put in a number of cultivars, that way you can take advantage of their different attributes, and potential, unknown genetic surprises. I still don't know why the Triple Crown did better, but maybe it had some flowers not yet open, or at a stage where they were more hardy. Still, 20degrees F should have knocked everything out. Mostly, I chock it up to God's grace.

brambledad,

Thanks for the info. I guess I'm going to have to do more research on blackberry varieties. I sure wish I had some of those wild ones from Missouri. They had snow and cold all winter; heat and humidity all summer; and thrived on it. Something must have gotten lost during the hybridization of blackberries.

Karen

Oh yes..... something lost, something gained;
but when you're old, your back's in pain...

brambledad,

Thanks for my chuckle for the day. LOL.

Karen

I love blackberries. Now that we have moved from town to our farm, I really want to plant some. I have great memories of picking wild blackberries as a child in the Missouri Ozarks during our vacations there.

I have been told that there are some wild blackberries here somewhere, but because of last year's freeze, no berries would have set. I'm not sure what to look for, to be honest. We have 80 acres - pastures, woods, and hay fields. Would they be along the creeks or in the woods?

Is it okay to plant them out in the open? I have about a 15 acre area that was a cow pasture years ago, it is terraced and has a couple of small stock ponds and it gets sun from morning until night. I was thinking that maybe that would be a good place to plant some berries?

Oh, heck, I wish I was really rich and I could just fly some of you experts here to Kansas and have you help this old lady figure out where to plant some berries!!

I would think that the open field would be a good place for your blackberries. The wild ones should be out in the open somewhere, not in the woods. I've seen wild blackberries in Oregon and Missouri. In both places they were growing in full sun, sometimes in open pastures and sometimes along fence rows.

At my grandma's farm in the Missouri Ozarks there were two kinds of blackberries growing wild. One of them she called a dewberry; the other a blackberry. I've since found out that the dewberry name must have been a very local one, because the actual dewberry is a scrawny little ground-hugging vine. Here in AL I've yet to see a single berry or blossom on the dewberry vines. But she did have two different types. The "dewberry" produced later in the summer and the berries had smaller seeds than the one she called a blackberry, otherwise the berries and vines were the same.

The vines would get about about six feet high and would kind of "arch" over, if that makes sense. The patches didn't get much bigger from year to year. I suspect that she mowed them down from time to time to keep them from taking over the pasture. That was over 50 years ago and I was a kid then, didn't pay much attention at the time. Of course, with 15 acres and no cows you might not care.

I'm looking to put in a blackberry patch here, too. I haven't decided what variety to get. Because of the late-frost problem and the hot, humid summers, I need to do more research on the internet.

Let me know how it works out for you.

Karen

Check out Enoch's Berry Farm, in Fouke, AK, just south of Texarkana. They have great prices, and have a lot of growing experience, as they produce berries as well as plants. They have a website you can get to by typing in berryplants.com, I think, or search for Enoch's. It was kinda hard to raise them on the phone this winter, but they are very pleasant when you do get them. Very helpful too. Arkansas has to be as humid as Alabama, I'd think. I used to live in High Springs, Florida, just north of Gainesville, and that was humid as all get out for months! Yet, blackberries grew fine, no problems at all. They are after all native to this part of the world, so can take a lot of what comes at them. For naturalizing, I'd say Triple Crown is great, and it's not thorny, has sweet berries of medium size. Some down in TX like Doyle's, too, but it won't make it up here in Indiana...too cold and late spring frosts.

brambledad,

Thanks. I'll check them out. I thought blackberries were native here, too. But in three years, I've yet to see a wild berry patch.

Karen

It could be your calling, to bring the native home. Maybe you could be the Jenny Blackberryseed for AL?

Also, berryplants.com takes you to a wholesaler in MI (a good one, from my experience), berryfarm.com takes you to Enoch's, but they inform me they are now all sold out for spring planting. You might try Nourse Farms or Hartmann's as well, both good sources for bare root brambles. Excellent customer service from both.

Good luck Ms. Blackberryseed ;)

brambledad,

How do I get them to naturalize? Go around sticking rooted cuttings here and there, Johnny Appleseed style? LOL.

What do you think of Navajo? It's listed as being good in cold weather and hot weather both?

Karen

glendalekid
If you put out trailing varieties, they will naturalize faster that the erect, as they have longer and more canes. It won't seem to happen fast, but in 8 years, if you look at a "now and then" photo, you'll be amazed. At $2.50 a pop plus shipping, if you got 30 plants, in three years time you'd have about 300-400 starts a year to dig and transplant. Especially if you take good care of those initial plants, giving them water, some extra fertilizer. That's how the wholesalers do it. Nipping the ends off of 5-6' primocanes also encourages massive side shoot development, with each branch able to produce up to 10-12 new starts. That could be over 60 starts from one plant, plus the berries! (Am I getting you enthused?)

I haven't grown Navajo, but am putting some in this year to test. I am colder than you are, so some of the great southern cultivars are just mere dreams to me. But, you won't know for sure unless you try.

brambledad,

Okay, how do you get the new starts? Do you have to snip off the part of a branch and root it or will it root itself if it's left to trail on the ground? That many new plants is amazing. I keep seeing that they either fruit on new wood or else fruit on old wood. How do I know which kind I have? I didn't see where this info was given for Navajo.

Most of the descriptions I found for the different cultivars don't really say much. They describe the berry -- well, that's not helpful particularly -- but say little about the actual growing of the vines. That's why I was interested in Navajo as the description for that one does mention being good for both hot weather (which we sure have here) and good for cold weather, too.

Those whatever-they-are berry bushes that I have yet to see fruit in two years don't seem to be bothered by the cold except that the late frost last spring did in all the blossoms.

Karen

The primo canes (the canes that come up from the ground starting in May) will grow all through the summer, then arch over and root in the ground, just like black raspberry's do. Most all blackberries fruit on the floricanes, which are just what you call the primocanes after they have gone through a winter (because now they are ready to "flower"). Some new blackberries, bred for Canada, called Prime Jim and Jan, do fruit on primocanes (like fall bearing red raspberries). Their fruit is great for Canadians, but I've heard the quality doesn't stack up to the southern cultivars. Navajo fruits on floricanes.

Come spring, just go around and snip off the ends of the rooted floricanes, dig, and replant. You have about a month before they've grown too much to handle transplanting well.

I would say you're just going to have to try some varieties and see how they perform. Your microclimate may invalidate any descriptions from breeders on the hardiness of the plants. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, Triple Crown has been the most impressive blackberry for our farms fruit production, especially given our late spring frosts.

brambledad,

Okay, so I won't get any berries this summer, right? Then do you cut down the floricanes after they have fruited? With them rooting in the ground, I could have lots of plants with no additional purchase. That's a neat idea. We have 1.8 acres, lots of room.

Maybe I ought to try some Navajo and Triple Crown both. What you do think about Arapaho? We do get some weather down into the teens at night in the winter, and last summer the entire month of August was 100+ every day. Actually, it doesn't get that cold in town, but we are up on the hill behind town and it gets between 5 and 10 degrees colder here.

Do the deer like blackberry vines? We have lots of deer and these will be outside the house fence. I found last year they really love pumpkin and squash vines, so I will have to fence those this year.

Karen

Your zone 7 winter temps are fine for any and all blackberry cultivars. Most all are hardy to zone 6. I sometimes have some winter dieback when we get in the minus 10's . Then I start to see all growth below a certain diameter bite the dust.

I haven't grown Arapaho, so maybe a post about it would garner you some more practical information.

Sadly, deer do love blackberry, or any bramlbe for that matter. Fortunately, if you put some cages out around the mother plants, you'll be able to generate lots of transplants for "flooding" your property. The deer are only going to be problematical on young plants. As the thickets grow, the deer just eat the edges or tips. All you have to do is protect certain areas from them. That can be as easy as putting up a 5' high chickenwire fence with a 12-15' diameter. They won't jump into such a small space. You can also mount it up a bit, so you can string trim under the fence (I know, more work).
We also have lots of deer (and eat lots of deer), and I use electric poly line to exclude them from certain areas. They are very smart in their element, and by watching how they move across our property, I have been able to leave open their "byways" so they just flow on past our gardens. Other growers in our part of the county use these lines too, so the herds are savvy about not getting near them, especially when they have a clear way through our property. I get all of our lines and chargers from Premier1 Supply (www.premier1supplies.com). A very competent company that actually uses and tests all the products they sell.

brambledad,

Other than that they ate the pumpkin and squash leaves down to funny little nubs last year, I don't know much about deer. We put up plastic fencing, the kind that you see on construction sites. I'm going to put that back around the melons, pumpkins, and squash again this year. Would 4' dog wire be high enough? It's more sturdy than chicken wire and cheaper than the plastic fence.

We had to electrify the fence around the houses to keep one of my daughter's dogs from jumping it and leaving the yard. He's a basset/lab mix. I didn't know labs could climb fences. Yep, they sure can. Then he learned to just sail right over it.

Karen

good grief! Basset's are one determined blood line!

I have used just two strands of poly electric wire (2' and 5' high strands) to good effect. The dog fence should work, but don't come headhunting in Indiana.

brambledad,

No Navajo or Triple Crown berries at HD today. Just Arapaho and something I'd never heard of, so I'll order on line.

It's the lab half that is the problem. Labs can climb up and over a fence by putting their feet in the holes. I saw him do it. I read somewhere on line that an four-month-old lab can easily climb a six-foot fence that way.

I don't think the deer really get that hungry here. Just that the melon, pumpkin, and squash plants were a delicacy they couldn't resist. So, I'll put up the dogwire until the brambles are large enough that it won't matter if I have to share.

Here's a pic of Buddy. You can see his little, bowed basset legs.



Karen

Karen,

Your dog is soooo cute! I love him!

Indiana Berry http://www.inberry.com/index2.html is a good site for reading about many varieties of blackberries, strawberries, etc. They're also good for ordering plants, in my one experience with them (strawberries arrived in excellent shape and out of 25 plants, I had a great croup out of all but 1).

Kiowa blackberry is known for gigantic fruit. Some people call them small pineapples. ;) Arapaho seems to have some desirable characteristics (not the least of which is being both erect and thornless), but fruit size is small.

It seems unlikely that Triple Crown would be found at Home Depot, but I suppose stranger things have happened. :)

This message was edited Feb 29, 2008 11:25 AM

feldon30,

Thanks. I'll check them out. Unfortunately, HD and Lowe's are what pass for nurseries in this town. I'm going to check Lowe's on Monday. If what I want is not there, it's back to the internet.

beth,

Buddy was somebody's throw-away dog. He is really sweet and sociable. Here is his best friend Teddy. Teddy was also a throw-away. Teddy loves his sweater. Dog sweaters are so expensive that my daughter buys infant sweaters at the thrift store for $0.50-$1.00 and rolls up the sleeves. Teddy only gets clipped in the summer.

Karen

We got our Triple Crown at Lowe's about two weeks ago.

Clementine,

Oh, great, thanks for letting me know. I'm going to check them out on Monday. I was surprised that HD didn't have them.

Karen

Karen,

Teddy is adorable, too! Both my dogs and all our cats were from the shelter or were just strays. I really get angry when people dump their animals.

I'm so nervous about ordering berries. Not really sure what will be good here.

beth,

You are in the same zone as brambledad. He recommended the Triple Crown, said it was the only one he got a crop from last year. The link feldon30 gave, Indiana Berry [HYPERLINK@www.inberry.com], has really good descriptions on it. On that site scroll down to the bottom of the page with the blackberry varieties listed. There is a chart that breaks them down by hardiness, flavor, etc. which maybe can help you decide. Their prices are pretty decent, too. Only thing is their minimum is 10, and I think I only want a 4-6 to start with.

I'm still hoping that this year I'll find out what is growing in that bramble patch here.

I've been trying to decide between Navajo and Triple Crown, and I think I'm going to go with the Triple Crown. I planted four blueberry bushes last year. They are flowering now. I want to get an additional variety and am looking at Tifblue. I also want to get an apricot tree.

My daughter and I have been having problems getting holes dug for plants. I'm not strong enough on the shovel, and she's got bad knees. However, I bought an 8" gas-powered auger a couple of weeks ago, so hopefully I've got that solved.

The people here are terrible about just dumping their animals, either to the roadside or the pound. It's not an attitude I understand even a little. We have five dogs total and four cats. They were all either abandoned on the road or else we got them out of the pound. Teddy we got from the pound. He is obviously a dog that had been well-cared for in the past. He was trained to sit, beg, stay, etc. He also knows all the fast food drive-throughs when he sees them, loves chicken nuggets. So, how did he end up in the pound with his hair so matted and dirty that the groomer had to practically shave him? He was supposedly an owner turn-in, but the "owner" didn't even know his name, said it was Ty and it was not. We think he was possibly owned by an elderly man who either died or went to a nursing home, and that he was turned in by "loving" family members. All the other dogs have learned to beg from Teddy. It's funny because they don't do it quite right, but it's recognizable.

Have a good weekend,

Karen

I think Lowe's is trying to be more aware of what varieties do well in certain areas. Alas they still only sell the Bonnie's Plants line of tomato and pepper seedlings. But their selection on apple trees were spot-on for what does well here in Houston. That's really great that you found Triple Crown at a Lowe's. If only they carried Pro-Mix or Fafard products. It's Miracle Gro or bust here. :(