I use social media. Not much you cant get or find on there.
IF those cuttings root that i stuck last week take that i think will be a game changer of sorts. The scion guys and fig and mulberry cutting guys have have a field day trading with each other… us rubus guys may as well get in on the action.
It happens with thornless boysen and logan and others. It takes awhile to get established.
Here is a first crop of thornless boysen
Here is a crop grown in a small planter.
Here is once established (3 yrs or so)
Clip all small canes to the ground after going dormant… let all of that energy go to the crown to send up nice strong canes the following year.
All pics and info from a small group called Boysenberry Growers on FB.
ha ha. Anyone who has grown any prime ark and not tipped it properly like I didnt knows that as soon as the berries fruit on the tips that cane goes straight to the ground with the sheer weight of the fruits and without trellis will break with its own weight.
Olallie and Tay will need to be trellised… i use the lasso method of just wraping them round and round the top wire and havent seen much need to tie anything. You can also waterfall them over the top wire as if you were going to tip root each one then tip them once they get near the ground… not much need to tie those either The canes are very forgiving so you can sort most if it out once dormant and do what you want with them…as you thin and remove all the small canes and sideways laterals… they are alot of work but worth it i think. Keep an eye on those low laterals as they will tip root on you when you arent paying attention. I will show pics this weekend of a nice trellis of trailing if you want.
Careful your going to wind up with a berry reputation like i have for growing pears! The truth is there is very little i dont or havn’t grown. Since i have done extensive work on pears like you do berries that is what everyone remembers. I think what your doing looks like a lot of fun! How are the heirloom health berries doing?
yes please.
Re: Big Daddy Fruit: midsize, 5.8 g;
I guess I fell for the hype. What should I expect? It was an impulse buy. OGW says in their description they make “some of the biggest berries we’ve seen”. Maybe its kind of like the opposite of a big bruiser of a mafia guy being nicknamed “Tiny”. I took a look to see if there’s anything else Id have them swap it out for. Stuff is all sold out or selling out it seems. I put in some ‘Caroline’ and ‘Anne’ from Nourse last year. Im tempted to swap that Big Daddy for another primocane raspberry.
my dewberries canes are like that. i think all trailing types have small canes. why they need trellising. give it a few more years. 1st year canes are always wimpy to begin with. once established they should perform better.
After about five years the trailing canes have a larger diameter but yeah they don’t get to be super big. Maybe some do? It might depend on environment. Most of my trailing blackberries struggle to survive here. I always have some canes that don’t survive the winter. This winter is so mild all of them may survive.
so far I’ve had 100% cane survival on my Colombia giant under the snow 2 years running. i planted 2 Colombia stars last spring . got them covered with old heavy fleece blankets and currently 3 ft. of snow planted on the east side of the house to protect them from the west/ n.w winds. we’ll see how they fare. if they make it ill may try tayberry.
I ordered 3 Chester, 3 Von, 3 Kiowa, 3 Triple Crown, and 3 Tayberry a few minutes ago.
Yeah those Oregon selections grow well here with no protection. It’s tayberry boysenberry, marionberry that become damaged. Speaking of OSU/USDA-ARS selections Newberry is just awesome. Nowhere to be found these days. I got mine from raintree years ago. It’s thorny and trailing. Large berry which can have an amazing raspberry finish if dead ripe. It took me quite a few berries before I tasted the raspberry. One of my very favorite blackberries. I like just about all blackberries though. It’s one though I hope I never lose. I protect mine in the winter. I put out some tip roots and we will see how hardy it is. I must say the ARS-OSU blackberries are highly underrated.
I dont want a reputation i just learn as i go… and read what others have done and get ideas and pass them along. So very thankful to have a good community of other folks on here that are open to discuss and share their experiences.
My passion stems from carrying gallon jugs of wild berries as a child from a wild patch and being amazed at the things that lived in that patch…from snakes to lizards, bees, rabbits, bugs of every size and shape. My parents made nice jellies and jams and cobblers that i could not get enough of. One year the oil and gas company sprayed the whole patch with weed killer and it disappeared forever. That somehow scarred me. In couple of years i went to a neighbors house that had “THORNLESS” blackberries… they were the size of half dollars it seemed… but we were not allowed anywhere near them… they were not to be touched or even looked at by us kids.
I am like that with fruit trees also and i have a pretty big collection going… that stems from my childhood of riding my bike at my grandmas and every yard seemed to have fruit trees. People were friendly and we could always get apples or pears or peaches just by asking. A good bag of peaches taken to grandma meant peach ice cream.
I give fruit away alot. Lots of jellies and jams and cobblers have been made by my friends and neighbors and each one has a new excitement for fruit. I gave away a few apple cakes this past week… you cannot buy them in stores so they were a hit.
Anyways i am passionate enough to keep learning and i share what i learn as i go… im not sure i will ever stop.
To answer your question- Healthberries… are beyond my grasp to tame. I pulled them from the row as they cannot be kept in my rows. I have found some roots that sent up suckers 25 feet from their row.
They are now in my wild gazing area that is rife with elderberries, mulberries, juneberries and alot of varieties of blackberries and raspberries that i have culled. This area is for nature and my walkabouts. The healthberries are free to do as they please and i plan on sharing them with whatever else finds them appealing.
Yes it is still fun… and i like that others on here and the various groups i belong to have passion as well… I cannot talk about things as freely on mainstream groups as most people only like to talk about what they know… new things or unknowns just dont make good conversation whether it be the upcoming releases or the lost and forgotten cultivars.
I see on here and my other groups that folks are excited about planting Chester and Triple Crown… both are ok i guess…but to me are like talking about Red Delicious apples or Bartlett pears. I started with both of those varieties years ago… but have moved onward.
@hobilus this is the ‘lasso’ method by my friend in Willamette Valley OR.
The top wire is about 5 feet high and all lower laterals are pruned off to keep neat and tidy. He is in his late 80s and says that this works the best for him and i think hes right.
interesting your travails trying to acquire and grow ‘illini’. A friend and neighbor of mine runs a great little nursery- he’s mostly into bizarre conifers and apples of all kinds, he has hundreds of both- but he has a patch of ‘Illini’ that he digs and pots up some every year. He’s offered me some before. I declined at the time, partly because the thorns are so hellacious. Not that Im squeamish or anything, just didn’t see the need at the time. I remember him saying they were tasty. Sounds like lots of others think so too. Maybe Ill see about getting one from him. Anyway, interesting that its hard to propagate. Id think being a blackberry it’d just root sucker like the dickens. I kind of figured if there are only a couple of super hardy blackberries cultivars, they’re probably not much better than wild. Im surrounded by wild Rubus too, so wasnt looking to reinvent the wheel. Sounds like I should reconsider.
I did ask OGW to swap out ‘Big Daddy’ for ‘Columbia Giant’ since @Drew51 seems to be able to grow em, and @steveb4 id having luck with them too. Of course, like any other of us fruit freaks, I started looking at berries, just thinking I might get one or two since shipping wouldnt be that much more. Now I want all of them! Looking at Nourse’s offerings. Theyre close and usually send really nice plants IME, plus well adapted here. Also trying to remember how many other irons I have in the fire. It better if you leave time to actually pick and enjoy, a lesson Ive still not fully learned
Hi, I’ve gotten into growing blackberries these past couple of years and just now fallen into the trap:
“Triple Crown seems good, is there one better?”
Any ideas for what blackberries and raspberries I should grow? Some of these hybrid like things sound good too, never really liked boysen, but my dad loves them. @krismoriah Victory looks cool, what do you think of it?
I’m in Northern California at two different locations, one around Santa Rosa (9a/b) where the Himalayans assimilate like the Borg, and another inland from Crescent City (9a) trailing blackberries and black rasps grow wild.
I’ve been focusing on growing blackberries at the second location mentioned, among others, I have TC, Navajo, and another erect thornless that I forget is name, big berries, hollow core. Navajo doesn’t like me or possibly my heat, they wimp along, some years not growing a primocane and somehow leafing off last year’s half dead floricanes to survive. Berries smaller than wild ones, and not as tasty.
TC grow like beasts. One had thirteen 8-10 ft untipped floricanes last year. TC also get the most sun, full sun on one side, solar panels on the other, which reflect even more sun and heat back at them. All plants get turned up to around .5 gallons per day during the summer, but TC seem very tasty to me.
Full Patch, June 20:
TC, July 21:
TC, Aug 3:
Forgotten Erect, Aug 3:
I think you would probably like Columbia Star better. It has pretty amazing breeding and was bred to replace Marionberry i think.
I will probably never find it again but Chad Finn said that Columbia Giant is more of a novelty plant for backyard growers… not the best for flavor etc etc.
While we are on the subject this will be my first crop of Marionberry here and they have seen zero temps and so far look to be without any winter damage and healthy.
Its a workhorse for me and more vigorous than TC… it keeps me busier pruning than any other that i have. It fruits in mid to late June and doesnt stop until Septemberish but those berries arent as good. TC is ripe late July into August which to me wasnt cool with SWD. So i would say Victory wins in fruiting earlier and longer…but the later berries that are in the TC window for me are mostly junked…those need to be washed and only fit for jams for me.
Victory for me has a bit more tartness which is what i personally like… more complex flavor than TC.
If SWD isnt an issue where someone lives its a good berry to grow…but it and its uncle Chester are not good for me… just SWD bait
I would wait for Celestial, Zodiac and Thunderhead blackberries…they will probably be released this year. Also wait for Finnberry raspberry.
All of those are USDA releases from Oregon and should do well for you…but i cannot fully recommend anything that has such little information about. I posted some videos near Christmas that i found.
Natchez is worth growing…its very early and i like it for that early window. The only complaint is seed size which doesnt really bother me.
Cascade Delight is worth growing unless you live somewhere where its colder than Z6 then it may be less hardy.
hmm. I have tried a few times to propagate via root cuttings and zero… true Illini doesnt sucker as far as i can tell. Primocanes come from the crown only as far as i can tell also. Its very very erect so the only way to get a ‘patch’ would be those low laterals somehow tip rooting…i just dont see it tip rooting any other way.
Perhaps its ‘Ebony King’ which is very close looking and also very thorny…it suckers like crazy and a ‘patch’ would be easy. Or perhaps someone down the line grew out seeds and called it Illini? Hard to know.
There was a thread years ago about Illini being ‘invasive’… i just dont see that being possible with a true to name Illini. Its one of the most well behaved plants that i have seen other than being thorny.
yeah, it sounded like it might be really good. I was scared off by some of what I read about it - seems it may be only a tad hardier than Marion:
Ill have to ask Scott about his ‘Illini’ patch. He’s had it a long time. Have you tried crown division? Hard to imagine a blackberry that isnt like the mythical Hydra but maybe theres an exception to any rule
Does anyone have an approximate ripening time for tayberry in Virginia 7B? A neighbor gave me one last year and it made long sprawling canes all over, plus at least one tip root, so I was excited to try it this year. Then I started seeing general ripening times of summer or late July and I was worried that it might be ripening too late to avoid SWD.
My Ponca, Caddo and Prelude plants seem early enough to avoid SWD, but it sounds like Tayberry might be too late. I realize I’ll find out this year when it ripens, but I’m trying to decide how much room to give it and whether to move the tip-rooted start to a good spot to extend the planting. Any thoughts?
