Raspberry Growth

[nickw1986]

Hi All,

First post...

I planted two shop bought potted Polka raspberry plants (6 canes) in February and I still haven't seen any growth. I created a new bed for the raspberries with 9month old rotted down manure and sharp sand to help with drainage. Should I be seeing growth by now?

Thanks

[Bigmallly]

Hello Nick & welcome to the Jungle. Polka is an Autumn fruiting variety so should throw new shoots out from the ground. Mine have only recently started throwing this years canes & this is their 3rd year. So don't give up hope just yet.

[nickw1986]

Thanks Bigmallly, I'll persevere.

[It never rains..it pours]

My canes outside are in the same boat, however some I potted up and have in the conservatory (will plant out when warms up) are growing strongly with 6" shoots so think its down to temperature of air and soil

[fishpond]

As has been said, patience.
My autumn raspberries are only just showing and I am not in the cold, unforgiving, wastes of Yorkshire.
This is also my 1st year with Autumn Raspberries, exciting isn't it?

[Jay-ell]

My Autumn raspberries are already starting to flower.

I wouldn't panic - just give them a bit more time and they'll sort out what they want to do.

[1Bee]

'Scuse my butting in, but does that mean that the stray, unlabelled baby raspberry canes on my plot, which are putting on leaf now, must be summer fruiting ones?

I need to know how to manage them, but I have no idea...

[Jay-ell]

Hard to tell 1Bee - are their any mature canes that hadn't flowered? Summer fruiting rasps will grow canes in autumn that don't fruit but are left over winter and will start flowering in spring to fruit in summer.

Autumn fruiting varieties can be cut down to the ground after harvest or in winter and will flower in summer and harvest in autumn.

My Tulameen (summer fruiting) had canes standing from last autumn but is also pushing up new canes at the moment - last year these early caned flowered in autumn and later canes developed to overwinter.

My Joan J were cut down in Feb and are now about 6" to 12" tall. They were planted last year as cell grown plants. There's flowers on three of the plants - I think these are on stems that have grown out the side of last years stumps, rather than from the underground roots.

Perhaps you should just wait and see - if they have new growth later on in the year let that growth over winter. You may just have to put up with two raspberry harvests from the same plants. It's hell but I think I can live with it

[1Bee]

Thanks, I'll do a bit of investigating....

[nickw1986]

It is exciting just hoping they haven't died on me! It's not been that unforgiving here in Yorkshire. 20c yesterday in the shade, I'm looking slightly pink after spending the whole day in the garden.

[The Griff]

My polka are around 5 years old and only just started to come up from ground, I cut them down to ground level in February. I also have some Joan J that I bought as bare root canes in early march, I have put these in pots in the greenhouse to bring them on a bit before planting out, only last week did some of them show signs of life with a couple of small shoots appearing.
There's plenty of time for them yet, don't be fooled by this warm weather, it snowed in the North East Uk at the back end of April last year.

[flynch]

I've an established raspberry bed with visible growth but nothing visible on the new bed planted in March, a test dig around one of the canes showed new canes from the roots that were just a few days from reaching the surface and the second variety with only a few inches of growth but growing nevertheless. I think it can vary depending on when the bed was planted and the variety/soil. If you're concerned dig gently around a cane and see if anything growth.

[Kirk]

I dug mine up, all autumn raspberries, and reworked the area they were in, looks more planned now. Dug over, compost added and manure added and dug over again to incorporate. The replanted raspberries are really now just starting to show some growth. Literally last week I was starting to seriously suspect I had managed a 100% mortallity rate on them.

There is just a few more bits of green around the area then last week, but hardly "growth". More a case of "Ooh, bit more green around, maybe they are not dead."

I would give them until say the end of April, you are a bit more North then I am. Seems a bit odd as much of the assorted bits are early this year owing to the milder spell we had over the last month or two. But the raspberries seem not to have benefitted or taken advantage of it.

[vixylix]

My new ones are slacking too - I have growth showing on 3 out of 6 but only one new cane showing through. If you're worried do as Flynch says and have a bit of a poke around - mine will get until I need the space and they'll be hoiked out if they're doing nothing.

[Jay-ell]

I think that newly planted rasps will first of all be stretching their toes and getting their roots down a bit. Established plants have already done this so can pop up earlier.

New canes pop up from nodes along the roots, A bit of a careful furtle round the plants may show that the roots are settling in. At first you might only have a couple of new canes ( my Tulameen last year gave 3 new shoots on 2 plants in the spring) but once they get going you get more (in summer they threw up 20 more) and soon they'll be romping away (those same 2 plants from last spring now fill an 8'x4' bed)

I planted 6 cell grown Joan J last July which haven't spread as much yet (just a bit further than the area they were planted in) but they have their roots down and are now throwing up new shoots nicely so that this time next year I'm certain the bed will be chokka.

Harvest in the first season may be minimal but give them time and they will fill up the space and you'll be regularly pulling out the canes to stop them from spreading.