Newly planted raspberries drying out. Help please!

[lomonkey]

I recently decided that I wanted to try out some fruit gardening and decided to plant some blueberries and raspberries. I ordered a couple of each from a well reviewed online nursery and received the plants the next day. I immediately planted the plants in my newly created raised beds. I made the raised beds specifically to plant my new berries and used all new soil.

The next day I checked out my new berries to see how they were doing and noticed some of the leaves on both raspberries were curling upwards and felt a little dry. The ground was still moist so I did not add more water. I figured this was no big deal. The next day I checked on the raspberries again and the number of leaves curling and drying out had increased. This continued for the next 5 days when I called the nursery and they told me they would send two new raspberry plants. Woohoo!

The new berries arrived a day later and looked even better than the first two. I removed the old ones and planted the new ones in the same bed. I checked out the new raspberries today and it appears that the leaves on one of the are starting to curl up and dry out again!!! I would appreciate any help to determine what is going on. I know I am planting the raspberries very late in the season, but I was hoping this would still be ok. FYI, I live in South Carolina so the weather is hot and humid. Thanks again for any help!

1 day after planting:

day1.jpg (140.08 KiB) Viewed 1956 times

2 days after planting:

3 days after planting:

[JONA]

Oh dear lomonkey,
When you plant raspberries or any other fruits it is wisest to do it when they are dormant. The exception would be if they are in a pot and well established in it.
It's normal however to cut raspberries to just a couple of inches from the ground when you bare root plant. This allows the roots to establish and then send out new cane for the coming year on Primocane varieties or for the second year for main crop types.
If they were mine I would cut them down to just a few inches to let the roots establish.

[!potatoes!]

raised beds filled with 'all new soil' - what kind? from where? liner between it and the real ground or no? generally I agree with john re: cutting them back. just wonder if there isn't more to the story.

[applestar]

I'm wondering if "immediately planted " might be the problem. When they are shipped to you, they've been in that box for several days, leaves are tender from being in the dark enclosed plastic and humidity. They need to be acclimated to the sun and air before planting out in presumably sunny area suitable for growing berries.

What I do is keep them in the box but open the plastic (either half way or just to the base of the plant) and the box lid (but keeping the roots in the dark) and put in all day shade of a tree. If bareroot, I toss in some moistened potting mix or additional moistened shredded newspaper to make sure all roots are covered to keep them from drying out. If potted, I water thoroughly as soon as I open the package so water runs out and the pot feels heavy, making sure to drain any water pooled in the plastic bag. I expose the upper foliage to dappled direct sun from the overhead branches, and make sure they don't get constant sun exposure for a few days, increasing direct sun until they can handle the sun and wind better.

They should have explained all this in the planting instructions.

[lomonkey]

Thanks to all of you for your replies. I can see that I have clearly made some major mistakes with the raspberries... I am just now getting started with doing some gardening and have a LOT to learn. Just to answer some of the questions that were raised in the replies.

For the raised bed soil, I used a mixture of about: 40% gardening soil, 20% peat moss, 10% composted manure, 25% perlite, and 5% sand. I got all of these from one of the big box stores.

My natural soil is clay. I did not put any fabric or anything else on top of the clay soil before adding the soil on top. I did break up the clay and till it up to about 2 inches of depth to help water drain out of the raised bed. I also kept the bottom of the sides of the bed (cedar) about 1 in off the ground to help water drain out if clay doesn't absorb it well.

The raspberries I received were not bare root. They came potted in containers with a plastic bag around the container. I'm hopping this is a good thing since JONA mentioned that well established potted plants could be an exception. The raspberries are 2 year old from the nursery.

I definitely did not follow the very reasonable steps outlined by applestar... I basically did everything opposite I opened the box, took the plants out, watered them, and set them out in the sun while I prepared the bed for planting. I figured they had been stuck in a dark box and needed to get some sun. From there I took the plants to the planting location, removed them carefully from their containers, wetted the root ball/soil, and carefully tried to loosen some of the roots before planting. Finally I watered deeply and covered with pine bark mulch.

I have already removed the original 2 raspberries from the bed and planted the 2 new ones I received from the nursery. Unfortunately, my ignorance knows no bounds and I repeated the same planting process before I had posted here. The new ones are looking better than the first two but I see some signs on leaf damage. I'm hoping they can fight through. If not, I will follow JONA's advice and cut them down to let them root better. One last thought, I found some mentions online to using a product called Superthrive to help plants with transplant shock. I bought some this morning and used it to spray the leaves and water the soil hoping it helps. Do you know anything about this product?

Thanks again. With your help, I can hopefully save my raspberries, but I will DEFINITELY be better for next time around.

[Lindsaylew82]

Hello SC neighbor!

When you unwrapped the bag at the bottom, was there dirt or sawdust in there wrapped with brown paper?

I'm not sure of raspberry shipping ways, but I purchased some really nice roses that came in long bags like that. They were packaged in what I thought was peat. It was really sawdust and was meant to be rinsed off and the roots soaked prior to planting bare root style. I obviously didn't read the directions. I thought I knew enough about gardening to plant some roses!! Right? Wrong... They never came up. Ever. I replanted them the proper way the next year, and now I have beautiful roses! Just wondering if your dirt was really dirt... Pays to read the directions, even if you're a pro.

I hope your newbies do better! You could offer them some shade for now with a tent or shade cloth. Some extra water mid day.

Best of luck!

[lomonkey]

Hi Lindsaylew82,

Thanks for the information. It's also good to hear from someone nearby! My raspberries definitely didn't come in bags or packaged with sawdust. They were planted in typical nursery containers. I definitely get the bigger point though, ALWAYS READ DIRECTIONS. I usually do this, but my plants didn't come with directions included, and it wasn't until today that I noticed that the tags that came tied to the plants have a code and website to planting directions....

I took your advice and set up a temporary canvas to partially shade the raspberries from the sun. It would be really nice if we could get some cloudy days or rain right about now instead of these lovely 90+ degree days!

Anyway, thanks to everyone for their advise. I will continue to watch my raspberries over the next few days and make sure I provide them with enough water (but not too much). I also will prune back any leaves or offshoots that are drying too much. Finally, if it looks like damage is progressing, I will follow JONA's original advise and cut them down to a few inches off the ground (I hope it doesn't come to that).

[Lindsaylew82]

This heat is misery........

I honestly don't think that you can overwater them in this type of heat, and we are in drought as well. Especially if your soil is well draining. You would see signs of overwatering that can be remedied. I say more is probably better right now. Embrace the water.

I think that wee bit of shade will help a lot during the acclimation process that Applestar mentioned.