Raspberry Plants

[wanghu788]

Hi! ...I've got a newbie question here. This morning my wife, in a bit of over-zealous cleaning up, snipped a large number of red raspberry plants to the ground in an area next to the house. I live in Southern California. I know that pruning back berries is normal in winter...but are these berries toast without any leaves to support them in summer...or will they come back? Without a root structure, are the stalks replantable? Is there anything I should put in the ground to help them? Thanks for any advice.

[Salmon Egg]

Your post makes me think that my wife might be bigamous. We live in Southern California. A few years ago she did the same thing to bababerries. Of the various raspberries I have tried, bababerries have the best berries. Unfortunately, I do not seem to keep them alive. Thus never came back,

I think that the outlook is better for other varieties, but do not expect any berries until next year's season t the earliest.

Bill

[Jan Flora]

Raspberry plants are pretty danged tough. I'd be surprised if they didn't come back in fine shape.

You could try to get the stalks to root, but I have absolutely no idea if it would work. (Hopefully one of the Master Gardeners will know something...)

Jan

[vert20]

Just take the stalks that were cut and either cover them in potting soil, sand, or just plain water. Keep then moist and watch for root growth. Once the roots develope, transplant to large pots or coffee cans for full root developement. With the plants in the ground already just feed, water and mulch. A quick and easy way to expand your patch is to just take the tips or a portion of the stalk and bury it. New roots will form from the stalk and once that is done just snip the two apart.

[wanghu788]

.Thanks! I'll try that. A couple hours after this happened I snipped about an inch off the ends & put a small bucketful of them in water...so hopefully I can get something going again if the ones in the ground don't make it.

[Jan Flora]

I suspected that raspberries would root by air-layering, but was too busy to dig out the reference book and look. Thanks for filling in that tidbit!

A couple of years ago, I dug up a couple of runners out of the paths at a friends house, early in the spring. Stuffed them in pots with some crappy soil. They grew. They thrived. They spent the winter in the pots, in the coldest winter we've had since

1964, with no snow cover. (I'm in Alaska.) I figured them for dead.

This spring, they threw green growth and looked fine, so I planted the mother plants _and_ the babies that they produced in the garden. Now they're are enjoying benign neglect, but their feet are in real soil & some cow compost, and they are thriving.

Tough little buggers!

Jan

[wanghu788]

Update: They're all coming back...whoo hoo! This morning they were all about 3" to 4" tall. :-)