Hi all -- I am both new to this forum and new to gardening.
I was led here in search of an answer to my raspberry problem!
We bought a red raspberry plant from the nursery about end of March. It was just a cane with no leaves planted in soil. We planted it in a half wine barrel and it looks like it is doing fantastic. In the 1.5 months it's been planted, it has gotten quite huge with tons of healthy leaves and countless clusters of flowers. The problem is that not a single berry had developed. All the flowers just die and dry up and nothing happens.
From suggestions I found elsewhere on the net, I thought maybe it was a pollination problem and tried hand pollinating the live flowers by brushing them with a tiny paintbrush, but it didn't seem to help. The cane tips are green and lively and the plant does not show any signs of disease or pests.
Does anyone have any ideas? Is it perhaps just too early in the season for the berries to form yet? Should I pinch off the dead, dried up flowers to encourage new buds to form?
Thanks in advance for your help!
-
rainbowgardener
- Super Green Thumb
- Posts: 25279
- Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:04 pm
- Location: TN/GA 7b
You may not get any raspberries this year:
The crowns and roots of raspberry plants are perennial, but individual canes live two years. Each spring, the plants produce canes (suckers) from buds on the crown and on underground lateral stems. These canes grow vegetatively during the first season, overwinter, and produce fruit during the summer of the second year, while new canes emerge to provide a crop for the following year. Second-year canes die shortly after fruiting. Everbearing raspberries bear a crop on the tips of first-year canes in the fall, followed by a typical summer crop on the lower portion of the canes the second year.
it's easy to tell first-year canes from second-year canes. First-year canes have green stems, while second-year canes have a thin, brown bark covering them.
https://umaine.edu/publications/2066e/
But they multiply rapidly year by year and soon you will have tons. Raspberries are taking over my yard, since the birds kindly distribute the seeds for me...
The crowns and roots of raspberry plants are perennial, but individual canes live two years. Each spring, the plants produce canes (suckers) from buds on the crown and on underground lateral stems. These canes grow vegetatively during the first season, overwinter, and produce fruit during the summer of the second year, while new canes emerge to provide a crop for the following year. Second-year canes die shortly after fruiting. Everbearing raspberries bear a crop on the tips of first-year canes in the fall, followed by a typical summer crop on the lower portion of the canes the second year.
it's easy to tell first-year canes from second-year canes. First-year canes have green stems, while second-year canes have a thin, brown bark covering them.
https://umaine.edu/publications/2066e/
But they multiply rapidly year by year and soon you will have tons. Raspberries are taking over my yard, since the birds kindly distribute the seeds for me...