Wilkinsons raspberry canes

[mosstrooper]

Hi all. Called into wilko this morning for onion sets and got my eye on Polka raspberry which i,ve had a fancy for.
It,s a single cane which came in a box with two others (early and mid season) which i have but no matter, the more the merrier.
Anyway, just been to plant them out and when i unwrapped the roots there were none,just a bag of compost with three bare sticks.
They're in the ground now but i'm not sure i have'nt been had.
Anyone planted bare sticks and had them take off before?

[WendyC]

I'd take them back. You really need some roots to get them going, although they probably would root from fresh cuttings. Did you take any pictures?
You might be better getting some from a garden centre as it's going to take a while for the one cane to multiply into enough to get a reasonable crop. Round here they are sold in bare root bundles of half a dozen or so.

[anton002]

I would take them back and either swap them or get a refund and do what Wendy said ,its not worth the disappointment of planting them and nothing happening ,you might aswell give yourself the best chance with some with roots.

[veggiechicken]

I'm with the "take them back" group!. If I'm buying anything in a box, I always pull it out first to check the roots and general condition before buying. Some of those plants sit on shelves untended for weeks.

[chrisdb]

Wilkos are serial plant abusers. They put bareroot plants in their shops and leave them there for months, sometimes, in 20 degrees with no water. Even the plants in pots often aren't treated much better. It's terrible... they should either train someone to look after them or stop selling them.

When I was at college and then uni I used to work part-time in a supermarket, and it was the same story. Head office kept shipping plants out, but I was the only one who ever watered them, and since I only worked weekends they didn't do too well. Most of them ended up being thrown away, but more would automatically be send no matter how few we actually sold. There was no way we could stop the flow into the store. The same thing repeated every year for the six years I was there.

That's the modern approach: pay peanuts, give your employees no sense of pride or responsibility, and have computers decide what gets shipped into store. God forbid that the people who know the area might actually be allowed to order what sells, and then be responsible for looking after it 'til it goes through the till.

[mosstrooper]

Ok, lesson learned it's not really worth my while taking them back for £2 so i'll order some more from a nursery, Thanks all

[anton002]

In that case plant them out and let us know what happens ,nothing to loose