Sunday, June 27, 2010

Will these blackberry canes survive?

Earlier in the week a neighboring gardener was clearing out part of his plot. He had a tangle of blackberry canes and let me remove a few. Unfortunately I was not able to put them in the ground right away and they ended up sitting in the plot for two days before Gail and I were able to plant them on Saturday afternoon. This is a photo of 2 separate sections of blackberry cane that I planted together. The younger section was green and lush even after a few days out of the ground while the sturdier older section was starting to brown but still showed signs of life. We planted these right by our gate:
I also trimmed down a pair of nearly 8 foot tall canes that did not look as healthy but had a very vigorous root system attached to them and planted them in the back of the plot:
I'm going to leave them in the ground through the fall and see if they show an signs of life. Early in the spring Gail planted a cutting from a raspberry bush which promptly died back and showed no signs of life until about a week ago when it started filling in with green leaves and reach towards the sun. Hopefully these blackberries will show similar results. Ideally they will put on some new growth before winter and be able to fruit next year. Here's hoping!

3 comments:

Annie*s Granny said...

I don't think you can kill a blackberry cane ;-) Raspberries are usually sold as one year old canes, and look absolutely dead when they come from the nursery bare root. It seems like forever before they begin leafing out, and they don't bear much the first year, but the suckers they put out are abundant, and good crops come your second year.

Barbara from Dorchester said...

Annie's Granny is so right. Raspberries and blackberries are basically incredibly hardy weeds -- invasive weeds at that. They spread by underground runners and have pretty much taken over my backyard. Lucky for them they are delicious (especially right after a good rain) so they don't get torn out and related to the compost bin.

Fred said...

Good to hear that the blackberry and raspberry transplants have a solid chance of survivial! Hopefully I'll have some fruit to show off next year!