Bababerry Raspberry

The “Bababerry” raspberry hybrid was created about 100 years ago by a breeder in L.A. by crossing some standard mid-western U.S. variety with a native species from the southern CA coastal ranges. It was originally sold by San Gabriel Nursery and perhaps others. My grandparents bought some for their home in Redlands as did other residents of the San Bernardino Valley. Somewhere around the '50’s nursery wholesale suppliers stopped stocking it and nurseries “forgot” about it for 2-3 decades. Then someone started selling it again, along with a made-up story about it’s origin being from the garden of a woman named “Baba”. :smile:

At my present home I built a raspberry planter along a downslope corridor. The internal dimensions are 2’ by 10’, and vary from 3’ deep at the upslope end to 5’ deep at the other.

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Those Babas look very happy. I have a Baba that I want to plant in a large container. Going to use a very large tomato cage to keep them corraled. This raspberry really, really likes it here. Yours look exceedingly happy.

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Great idea :slightly_smiling:

Very creative use of space, Richard. (not such a raspberry fan though)

won’t be long now …

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Richard do you like the flavor of Baba? I just planted mine this year but got some off of the last years stocks…they seems a bit “Winey” to me…almost musky? Is this your experience too?

The flavor varies a bit by crop season here – with our spring being cooler than those in inland valleys and our fall being long and very warm or downright hot.

I think your observation is generally correct though, there is a wild side to it.

Now in the heavy cropping stage :smiley:

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The white spots on the plant are flowers :slight_smile:

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Hi Richard. Your story is partially correct. My girlfriend’s mother discovered the berry on her property in Idyllwild, CA, and grew it in Los Angeles in the 1970s. Her nickname was “Baba” and you can read the story in the original patent online. Hope this helps.

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=Bababerry.TI.&OS=TTL/Bababerry&RS=TTL/Bababerry

@LeslieWade In the early 1960’s it was available at Gardena Nursery. If your girlfriend’s mother patented it, then she must have been the first to do so.

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Goes to show how different regions affect plants. . .I planted 2 Bababerry plants a couple of years ago, and decided to pull them out this spring. . .they performed the worst of all my raspberries – more subject to disease and the fruit was rather crumbly. But – I am in VA zone 6. (I got the idea to plant them from old posts on another forum by a gentleman named Don who wasn’t terribly far from where I live. But they clearly did better for him than for me.) Yours look both very happy and productive. Interesting to know more about the variety even if they didn’t work out for me.

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Wow, not something I’d recommend for zone 6!

Janet took this photo while picking berries today :slightly_smiling_face:

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@Richard, have you tried rooting these in the past? How easy is it?

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Like many Rubus, tip rooting in the Fall is the easiest. Are you familiar with this method?

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No, I’m not familiar with it…

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Just bumping this thread up. Would this one do well near Dallas, Texas? (Z8a) Looking for a raspberry, but not having much luck finding information on heat tolerant varieties.