Raspberry help please

[out in the cold]

I am looking for some advice please...

It looks like we could be getting the allotments in the village that I mentioned ages ago.

I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago to my colleague who runs our school allotment and she offered me some raspberry and loganberry canes, which I thought would be a good idea to use as a plot boundary.

My question is: given that as yet we don't have a timescale for the lotty and I was planning to take them and pot them up for a while, would transplanting them again in the same season harm the plants?

Cheers for the help. Apologies if this is a totally daft question...

[Nicos]

I've never potted them up but especially as they are dormant at the moment I ca't see you would have problems with that.

The thing to look out for is that you don't plant them too deeply as they like shallow roots- and don't overwater them.

I was given some canes a while back and left them in a bucket of water for a couple of weeks, and they really didn't like that!

[roitelet]

If you have a bit of empty ground heel them in until you are ready to plant. Remember that raspberries send out suckers and grow like weeds and loganberries need support and grow like blackberries.

[FB.]

The plants will be OK if potted and transplanted later.

Just be aware that plants take several months to establish, so if planted in summer they won't have had enough time to grow wide-spreading and deep root systems, so they may need watering in their first season.

For containerised plants, the best time to plant them is just as their leaves show a slight hint of yellowing in autumn. Usually around September. All the energy being extracted from those yellowing and soon-to-fall leaves will be used by the plant to build a bigger root system to power growth the following year and the plant is often full established within a matter of weeks.

For bare-root plants, the best time to transplant is mid-winter, around January. Their burst of autumn root growth has hardened-off so less roots get ripped off in the moving process. They also have a couple of months to grow new roots as the soil warms in later winter just before the leaves emerge.

[boundtothesoil]

I'd try to minimise the number of times you dig them in and out of soil, as developing young shoots emerging off the roots in the early spring are so easy to snap off completely or break in half. So, I'd favour potting these canes. Then, when you're ready to stick them into their final position, there should be less potentially damaging disturbance around the shoot/root junction area.

[FB.]

I'd try to minimise the number of times you dig them in and out of soil.

Worth mentioning:

Plant roots are sensitive to daylight. A few minutes exposure to daylight can stop the root growing for weeks.

Active roots (i.e. spring, summer and autumn) don't like being exposed to air, which dries them out and stops them growing for weeks.

In other words: any root disturbance can upset the plant and stop or severely reduce root activity for several weeks or even months.

Slightly off-topic but to give a real-world example using a different type of fruit:
Myself and boundtothesoil's experiences of fruit tree rootstocks also show this.

btts has plenty of rain and gets on well with MM106, while I struggle to get MM106 to grow without regular watering in summer because its roots don't like the dry soil that's a normal part of summer here in Cambs, and its roots go into a prolonged emergency shutdown and refuse to restart until they have been in damp soil (but not waterlogged) non-stop for a couple of months.
Unfortunately, here, the sandy-gravelly soil is bone dry again within a few days of rain in summer, so MM106 only does well in wet summers here or on soils where dryness isn't a problem (which could be a damp shady garden in a dry area, or a corner of a garden in an otherwise dry area).

The MM106 is a great example of how plant roots don't like being messed about, and how they don't like changes in their environment (which includes transplanting).

[out in the cold]

Many thanks for the advice folks.

We are going to put them in some big pots at the weekend and "repot" when we get the lotty (going to a meeting tomorrow night, so fingers crossed...)

[wbmkk]

I bought some raspberries a few weeks ago and put them in pots.

I planted them, as advised to do and found they hadn't grown any more roots. The result was that when I took them out of the pots, they just came out, so were once again planted as bare root plants.

I would have preferred for them to have grown roots, like a normal pot plant, then when planting, I could have just popped out the whole pot of soil and planted it. There was no root ball.

[johnjohn]

That would be normal for this time of year, plant them as they are.

[FB.]

I bought some raspberries a few weeks ago and put them in pots.

I planted them, as advised to do and found they hadn't grown any more roots. The result was that when I took them out of the pots, they just came out, so were once again planted as bare root plants.

I would have preferred for them to have grown roots, like a normal pot plant, then when planting, I could have just popped out the whole pot of soil and planted it. There was no root ball.

Plants often take a few weeks to settle-in to a new place (including a pot) so lack of root growth isn't surprising. Every time you move them the roots will be exposed to excessive light and air which will slow them down - and when replanted they have to start settling in again.
Also at this time of year the weather is cold and plants are close to fully dormant above and below ground.
When temperatures fall below about 6'C most plant root growth stops. Potted plants are more exposed to the cold air - their roots will be extra-cooled in winter and extra-warmed in summer.