About five years ago, I planted two varieties of raspberries, Heritage and Caroline, both everbearing types from Burpee. (My Raspberry and Strawberry Plants are Here!)
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Not knowing how they spread, I now have some combo of them both, or even possibly just one that was hardier. Who knows? In any case, they have finally matured and have been producing an abundance of delicious raspberries.
I’ve been very nervous to prune the plants for fear of killing them. Unfortunately that’s been known to happen to anyone who has grown raspberries, especially in northern gardens. But they’ve become quite unruly, and there’s a lot of dead canes.
Everbearing varieties produce fruit once in early fall on the tips of the one-year-old canes (primocanes) and the following summer on the lower part of the now second year canes (floricanes). I need to prune out the second year floricanes either after they produce fruit in late summer, or in March or early April. These plants are done and will produce no more fruit. New canes grow every year, so any healthy raspberry planting has a combination of both one- and two-year-old canes.
Sounds easy enough, but I’m always nervous pruning new plants.
Here’s a before picture. Truly a tangled mess of thorny canes.
In order to do the job, I need the right tools:
- Garden pruners, I love my Felco F8 pruners,
- A good pair of garden gloves. I started with my regular garden gloves and then went and got a good pair of thick work gloves. Too many thorns!
First I started by taking out any dead, broken, or diseased canes, as well as any canes that sprout up outside the row footprint.
Raspberries grow best in a 2-3 ft row, so prune away the suckers to keep them in their space.
Then look for anything that seems to have brown, peeling scaly bark and cut those to the ground.
Now how to decide from what is left what is a floricane and what is a primocane?
Floricanes will be brown or grayish in color, harder and more brittle in texture, and may have fruit remnants low on the canes. The floricanes should be pruned to the ground and removed. No need to leave any stubs, they are done.
Primocanes will look fresher and possibly green. The primocanes may also have remnants of fruit at their tips. Primocanes can either be left alone, or trimmed. I trimmed mine by pruning off the top 1/4 or so, to bring their height back to a manageable size. I also trimmed off any fruiting remains to clean them up.
Done! What a difference!
Now that we are in fall, and the fall harvest is huge, I can really see the “fruits of my labor” (sorry, couldn’t resist)
Time for some raspberry jam!!!
Some other raspberry tips:
For new raspberry plants, prune back the canes to 4 to 5 feet tall in late winter during the first couple of years after planting. This will ensure that the bush gets plenty of light, which is essential for fruit production and creating a healthy bush. It’s not recommended to cut all canes back to the ground in northern gardens with short growing seasons and early fall frosts. There’s just not enough time for the plants to put energy into both growing healthy canes and fruit.
Need to tie back your raspberry canes? I’ve found strips of torn sheets to work better than garden twine. After a short time, the twine breaks from rubbing against the thorns and needs to be replaced frequently.
One-crop summer-bearing type of raspberries can be pruned right after the summer harvest. Cut to the ground any canes that have fruited. These kinds of raspberries produce fruit on the second year canes, so once fruited they are done.