I know my cane berries are dead ripe when the sepals turn a dry brown.
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Picked the first Osage and Ouachita berries this morning. First time the Ouachita has produced a decent amount of berries. Fruit is slightly tangy, not real sweet, but still pretty good.
Freezes pretty much wiped out my Ponca, Freedom and Traveler canes, but thankfully they’ve sent up quite a bit of new canes, especially Ponca.
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I am between Von, Osage, and Caddo. Anyone have good experience with these?
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Do blackberries grow true to seed?
My two Ponca plants are producing fruit off their primocanes, which isn’t supposed to happen. Just about all the floricanes got fried last winter, so I’m not understanding what’s going on, other than my plants may not be Ponca’s.
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Don’t have Von, but have the other two. Caddo hasn’t produced for me after 3 years in the ground, but Osage (5 years old) has, and I like their flavor the best of all of my 7 UArk varieties.
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Do you have a blackberry you rate higher than Osage?
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Triple Crown is my favorite of all the ones I have. It’s hardier in my climate than the others and has a better flavor IMO. It’s only drawback is that it’s a semi-trailing variety, meaning it requires some kind of trellis support. It also is the latest variety to mature, usually in late July.
Osage is my second favorite, but it has a smaller berry, and isn’t as productive as my others. Freedom has the biggest berries, followed by Natchez.
They should all be hardy enough in your zone 8a location, although I didn’t even know Virginia was in 8a.
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I have triple crown and I like it a lot, however if I knew just how vigorous it was, I would have never placed it where It is in my yard. I’m either getting rid of it or moving it . Also you are not alone, most people don’t know Virginia has zone 8. If you look at the hardiness map of the state you’ll see almost the entire Hampton Roads is zone 8. It is probably the most northern zone 8 of the east coast. I believe it’s actually the northern limit for plants like Spanish moss.
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Ok, I saw a hardiness map and zone 8 is in the SE corner of Virginia, in the Norfolk area and the south end of the Delmarva peninsula.
Yeah TC will spread in a hurry if you don’t keep it pruned. My TC patch is a mess of canes and weeds, I’ve been negligent in keeping it maintained.
If I had to pick the best flavored blackberry, right now it’s Osage, but it’s not the most productive and the berry is on the smallish side. It does have an upright growth habit.
My Caddo and Ponca haven’t produced anything yet, so I can’t comment on them. Although my Ponca has fruit on its primocanes this year.
If you want big fruit and a productive variety, Freedom is the one. It’s a primocane variety meaning it produces on the tips of the primo’s the same year, and the floricanes the next year. It suckers prolifically, so keep that in mind. Flavor is decent, but the berries are huge.
Traveler is a primo variety also, but smaller fruit than Freedom.
My problem is my 6b zone, so I get a lot of winter kill of floricanes, but you should be good.
I’ve got all my blackberries (except TC) from Indiana Berry, all of them are still going after 3-5 years. They allow you to buy a minimum of one plant, unlike others that requires you buy at least 5 or more minimum.
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Wild ones do… Plants that have been bred do not grow true to seed.
Lots of people on here and FB are saying and have been saying that their primocanes are fruiting… its almost always a secondary fruiting lateral. Kind of easy to tell due to fruiting in early Autumn since Ponca is a fairly early fruiting variety.
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you’re not kidding tc is a beast . i put in 2 plants 2 years ago. didn’t grow much the 1st year but really took off this summer. off 2 plants i got about 2 gallons of berries from the small 1st years canes. even with constant tipping they are growing like crazy. im going to have a time protecting them under the snow this winter. they want to grow more erect. some might freeze but there’s so much new growth, most will probably make it. so far out of nelson, tc and chester , tc tastes the best.
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I’m surprised your canes survived your winters. They do fine here whereas my other UArk varieties struggle. But, I think TC is supposed to be okay in zone 5. Yeah you will need to bury them in straw or hay or snow to get them thru the brutal winters.
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Maybe, but these are on the tips of the canes, usually floricanes fruit lower down on the cane. But I’ve also read that Ponca does send out secondary fruiting canes later in the year. But that would be off floricanes, which just about all of mine got killed off.
Either way, I’m happy I finally got some fruit off them. We’ve been picking a couple handfuls of berries every day off them and Freedom and Traveler canes, and will continue to until the first freezes, which are usually mid October.
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Fruiting on tips of canes narrows it down…especially fruiting in Fall on primocanes.
Since you say you have Freedom and Traveller… your ‘Ponca’ should be nearly identical to Freedom if its fruiting now.
My Ponca plants are like none other… that i grow.
Description: The canes have unique architecture with reduced leaf internode length.
So my guess is that you dont have ‘Ponca’ if its fruiting now on primocane tips.
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i snowblow my snow over them. they usually are under a few ft. of snow by time we even get close to -0 tempts. did the same with Colombia giants and they came through just fine. got a few colombia stars i put in last june. hopefully they make it but im pushing it as theyre only z6 hardy. we’ll see.
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Hi all,
I just started about 15 varieties of blackberries/raspberries in my small back yard in Plano, TX (zone 8A)
some I’ve planted next to a fence, some are still in containers
My family, friends, and co-workers have all told me I’m insane, and my wife has given up with all the nursery boxes being delivered to the door every few days…
I’m excited to see what actually survives here!
My first question (of likely very many more) - my marionberries planted in june/july are already over 6 feet tall - should I tip them or just let them keep vining forever?
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TAMU created all kinds of varieties that are for your climate. I talked about them in the other thread but someone said they were impossible to get so maybe they dont have a search engine or dont know how to use one.
I would guess that most of your blackberries will do fine…the rasps depending on the varieties may struggle a bit.
More info on trailing varieties in the Blackberry Raspberry and Hybrids thread. Several methods of trellising and training…depending on your space and desires.
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@PcChip … check out the vid below for what to expect growth wise for marionberry… long floppy canes will need support… the youtuber is using a 2 wire trellis… which is popular for west coast trailing blackberries.
They tip root easily… so if you want to reproduce them just let some tips grow down to the ground.
Good luck !
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thanks for the info!
I do have one of the TAMU varities - Rosborough (although the ebayer had it labeled as Rosenborough)
Also thanks for the link to that video, I’ve seen it a couple of times (I think I’ve watched every single blackberry video on Youtube, and a good percentage of all the raspberry ones too) - was just wondering if anyone here tipped their marionberries or let them grow long like that video
edit: in fact, I even commented on that video about her leaves - mine look different!
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No real reason to that i can see other than space issues. If anything u want to cut the lower laterals off while dormant… and only have fruits on the the top wire. As it will get crowded down there next year.
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