Black Raspberry

Our raspberry plant was on the property when we moved in nearly 3 years ago, and was huge from the two years the property was abandoned (...Read Moreinside a large housing complex, no less!). My dad and I started chopping it down before I realized what it was (this was September 2012), so about half the bush survived our hacking.

The canes DO droop down and root if you let them, so we do happen to have about 8' of fence covered with the briars and some plants about 3' out from the fence. I am slowly working it back, though.

The plant is VERY thorny, but the berry is so very sweet/tart no matter how tiny the fruit can be. Being a wild-type raspberry, I'm willing to deal with the smaller yields. It gets about 6 hours of sun a day in my yard, is in mostly clay soils, and seems to love the taste of my blood when I work with it.

If you are growing a raspberry bush for the berries, I'd suggest looking elsewhere for a newer cultivar that produces well and is less bloodthirsty. Wilder plants usually give smaller fruit and smaller yields on a regular basis - this species is no different. It is worth it if you prefer the wilder types of plants (me, for one), but it is a bit of work and a slight blood-sacrifice to bring in your ripe crop.

If I didn't have this bush already on my property, I don't know if I would add it or KEEP it after a couple years because of the blood-letting I already get from the dozens of rose bushes I have in my yard. But, with it being an established plant instead of having to raise it, I find it worth keeping considering the amazingly delicious berries we get for free from it.

I will be working on learning how to prune the canes properly to give better yields, as I'm about to add a blackberry and a few red raspberries to the mix. That may change my mind about keeping this bush, yet it may increase my desire to keep it for the blessing of a wild bush.

I'm in zone 4b and have had good results with this plant, and it has survived some really harsh winters (-35, and -20 with no snow cover,...Read More and I've never mulched it). Generally the last few, slender feet of each cane will not revive after winter, but when they're 8-12 feet long, who cares? I love to eat raspberries, but they're kind of a pain to keep. The main positive feature of the black raspberry is that if you prevent the canes from touching the ground and the berries from just falling and reseeding, it's very easy to control this one. It does not spread underground like the red ones I had briefly. In an urban lot it's not a good idea to plant ones that spread by rhizomes. The black raspberry sends up new, rapidly growing canes from the crown each summer that harden over the winter and bear fruit the next year, and then die. You can prune the fruiting canes out by the end of August and train the new canes upward. I don't usually prune the fruiting canes until the following season reveals how much of the length will bear fruit. Removal of the old canes each year is essential! Mine was planted by a previous owner at the base of a maple tree which I use for a sort of trellis. Canes on my mature plant often reach ten feet in length. I don't like to prune them to make them bushier because in April I lower, wrap and arrange them around the trunk. It has been there for at least 16 years and there is still only one plant. There is no spreading at the base, and it seems to maintain a fairly constant size now. It is a lot more thorny than a red raspberry, but less so than a climbing rose. You'll definitely need some rose gloves to work with it, and you definitely do need to keep an eye on the fast growing canes, but it's much easier than digging rhizomes out six inches under the surface. In other words, it's much better behaved in tight garden conditions. With more land, you can let the red ones run rampant. The flavor isn't quite as good, primarily because it has more seeds. They freeze nicely. We smash and strain them to make a tasty sauce--add some sugar and a little water, then drizzle over ice cream. The flavor is recognizably rasberry, but a bit like blackberry with the tartness of a blueberry.

The western black raspberry is extremely thorny. Extremely! It's fruits have a distinctive but inferior flavour to the eastern types. ...Read MoreI have a few plants growing as a novelty but do not recommend them to gardeners. They are attractive but are definitely inferior in flavour to the eastern varieties. They are also much more difficult to handle. If you really want to grow them then be advised that they need to be pruned vigourously to get acceptible berry size. They do not need full sun, half a day of sunshine is adequate. They should not be allowed to dry out as they generally seem to grow at the edges of the forest in some shade. I am in Vancouver, B. C. which has the same climate as Seattle.