Cloning blackberries
- Thread starter Cali_Boss
- Start date
We started cloning yesterday,,, bit of an adventure with Cannaboy so he could borrow some Raspberry cuttings 
Do NOT uproot any wild plant (totally against the law in UK),, take cuttings from the tips of healthy plants,, and ideally go back next season and plant a few of the clones you've rooted!
They should clone ok,, but the rooting ratio isn't normally 100% (more like 50/50). We use pots or cell trays of moist soil and cover with a propagator (20c) for a month.. same way we clone rosemary
Hope this helps
Do NOT uproot any wild plant (totally against the law in UK),, take cuttings from the tips of healthy plants,, and ideally go back next season and plant a few of the clones you've rooted!
They should clone ok,, but the rooting ratio isn't normally 100% (more like 50/50). We use pots or cell trays of moist soil and cover with a propagator (20c) for a month.. same way we clone rosemary
Hope this helps
many Rubus sp. grow by runners, kind of like a mint plant, and those can easily be propagated. just cut away from the mother and replant. or as docleaf suggest, you can take cuttings. most are biennial plants though, and some require 1 yr of growth and then the next year they flower and fruit. others will flower and fruit both years, but either way most canes will only last 2 years, so propagate 1st year growth.
arcticjake
Member
I grow raspberries and divided rhizomes to expand to a new beds. I'm not sure about blackberries but raspberries seem to thrive in disturbed soil. Besides chopping my canes back every 2nd year I also will dig,chop,divide and otherwise mess with them every couple of years as well. Even here north of 60, raspberries will expand into large patches if not controlled.
Jake
Jake
Some good info here, thank you, I cut a couple tips off a climbing rose and placed those in my MJ cloner to try and root, no nodes visible yet, I'll update if it works, DD
lol runners, damn i musta been stoned, i meant rhizomes, they are underground stems, they arent above ground.
Doobie i would just mound the rose, bring one of the branches down to the ground, cover part of it with dirt or stick it into a pot with some medium and secure it, keep it moist.
Doobie i would just mound the rose, bring one of the branches down to the ground, cover part of it with dirt or stick it into a pot with some medium and secure it, keep it moist.
Thanks Sherriff..I thought of that and I may just do it. They are just starting to show thier leaves here now so the timing is just right. I'll keep you posted..DD
Cali_Boss
Member
oh i would never even think about harming a wild berry bush, im somewhat of an outdoors/ethnobotonist so growing and reviving plant life is really my thing. thanks for all the info, and fast too, this site is great for anything growing.
basically i want to get a plant and give it a real good root mass and veg cycle so it can survive the harsh winter i want to transplant it at which is higher in elevation, and provide good fruit for future years. basically i just want a healthy plant that will thrive with well established root mass. especially since ill be growing it in an area with less light and less of a growing season, so it'll need a good start.
so what cloning method would you say is most effective for my situation? i believe (unless i understood wrong) that you can clone via cuttings from healthy plants, cutting of a portion of the root or cutting from a portion of the rhizome. which one is most effective/most easy?
ive always understood that weed is very very easy to clone when compared to other plants, and i dont even clone weed as is, so this is new to me.
basically i want to get a plant and give it a real good root mass and veg cycle so it can survive the harsh winter i want to transplant it at which is higher in elevation, and provide good fruit for future years. basically i just want a healthy plant that will thrive with well established root mass. especially since ill be growing it in an area with less light and less of a growing season, so it'll need a good start.
so what cloning method would you say is most effective for my situation? i believe (unless i understood wrong) that you can clone via cuttings from healthy plants, cutting of a portion of the root or cutting from a portion of the rhizome. which one is most effective/most easy?
ive always understood that weed is very very easy to clone when compared to other plants, and i dont even clone weed as is, so this is new to me.
sorry for the off topic, but talk about "sign of the times"... I saw the subject and immediately thought this thread was about phones...lol
Haha ^^^ they do clone the phones also dont they
As already mentioned above,, it is normal for blackberries to propagate themselves as the canes bend over and touch the ground. Using a small cup of compost and a peg (to peg the canes onto the soil in the pots) works great. Once rooted the stalk can be cut and you have a new plant.
Hope this helps
As already mentioned above,, it is normal for blackberries to propagate themselves as the canes bend over and touch the ground. Using a small cup of compost and a peg (to peg the canes onto the soil in the pots) works great. Once rooted the stalk can be cut and you have a new plant.
Hope this helps
if you have the time and access to the plant i find mounding usually to be the easiest, best, and most succesfful method. plus them you dont have a dinky little 4" plant rooted out, at the end of the season you have yourself another full size plant ready to be transplanted to its new home for growth next season. at least here thats how it works for me.
That method is cool (your sides),, but in the UK,, IT IS ILLEGAL TO UP-ROOT ANY WILD PLANT ,, without the landowners permission,, wild or otherwise... this helps protect , 'protected species' like the fritillary (plants and butterflies),, and stops people from taking from nature,, without contributing anything back.
Otherwise ,, for at home that's really cool info.
thanks,, we will try mounding our raspberry shoots that land to help they grow better Neat info Is that true? introduced? we've had blackberries in our diet these sides since neolithic times ,, great source of fiber and vitamin C... and purple dye
peace out
daves4usc
Member
Um Wrong!! you have never visited the South (America) have you. I normally wouldnt chime in like this but since this has been the BEST year for Wild black berries and am super excited to see all the beautiful white blossoms (the most Ive ever seen), I feel like I need to put my two cents in. Blacberries do indeed grow wild and are native to the area where I live. We had a ton of rain over the Winter and that coupled with an unusually cold season (which I feel is a contributing factor) I am witnessing what several oldtimers have informed me as the best year for blackberries in the past twenty-five years!!! Mmmmm blackberry pies and blackberry wine!!!
Interesting
heavy berries often sign-posts a heavy winter... we had a bumper crop a few years back now,, and the winter after was very cold,, bbrrrrrrrThose oldtimers are wise in such ways,, we always listen to old folks
daves4usc
Member
DocLeaf, it is interesing indeed. I have the pleasure of working a family garden (more like small farm with 30 acres) this year with a 90 year old man who grew up a mile from our property on an old plantation. Ive always been around agriculture, but from him I am learning how to truly live off the land as he had too coming up in the depression. He also told me that blackberries are a sign of a healthy and balanced enviroment. Its funny I found this thread since I had the conversation with him about this very topic just a few days ago.
Cali_Boss
Member
thanks for all the info, its helping me out a lot. the area im looking to get a cutting from is overgrown with them so im not too worried about taking too much.
however, the plants are very large, could i just follow one of the stems down to the ground and cut it off with a few inches of the root attached? and transplant that? im new to this, so could you extrapolate on your "mounding" method?
thanks again
peace
if you have access to them, the best time to transplant is in the spring either before they the start growing or while they are still small plants. I would cut back the 2nd yr canes, and dig up the root ball. if theres a lot of rhizomes, then they can be very hard to transplant with the root ball intact, but the rhizomes are easy to plant up if you cut the stems back. they are pretty damn easy to propagate just by diggin them up if you are in a place where its legal to do so though
otherwise with mounding, i was really more refering that as a way to propagate the roses in an easier manner. but its totally possible with the Rubus sp. too. Just bend a growing branch to the ground and bury part of the stem, maybe 6-8" worth of stem, in the ground about 1-2' from the growing tip of the plant, and secure it with a stone or tie it down some other way. then in about 2-3 months that part of the stem will be totally rooted out, and you can cut it from the parent plant where it was buried in the dirt and dig up the new root ball and plant thats there at the end of the season and transplant it in fall, or even wait till next spring to transplant it to its new home.
otherwise with mounding, i was really more refering that as a way to propagate the roses in an easier manner. but its totally possible with the Rubus sp. too. Just bend a growing branch to the ground and bury part of the stem, maybe 6-8" worth of stem, in the ground about 1-2' from the growing tip of the plant, and secure it with a stone or tie it down some other way. then in about 2-3 months that part of the stem will be totally rooted out, and you can cut it from the parent plant where it was buried in the dirt and dig up the new root ball and plant thats there at the end of the season and transplant it in fall, or even wait till next spring to transplant it to its new home.
