![]() Once the berries turn from bright red to dark purple or black, they’re ready to harvest. But keep an eye out for anthracnose, blackberry rosette, and cane rust, and closely inspect your plant every few days to stay ahead of any aphid or Japanese beetle infestations.Īvoid overhead watering to help keep fungal infections away, and if you do see any signs of fungal infection, such as gray lesions or spots on the leaves, spray the plant with copper fungicide.įor pests – especially aphids – a neem oil-based spray works wonders. ![]() The best cultivars to grow in containers are also bred to be the most disease resistant, so container grown blackberries have a leg up when it comes to fighting off unwanted plagues.Īnother bonus of growing these brambles in containers is that they’re more self-contained and aren’t prone to spreading and tangling with other plants, thus increasing the chance for pest infestations.īlackberries aren’t highly susceptible to pests or disease. You can find live plants available from Burpee. Like other outstanding blackberry cultivars, ‘Natchez’ was bred by horticulturists at the University of Arkansas. In June, the pollinated blooms ripen into large, super-sweet berries. After the fall or winter’s first hard frost, enlist some help to move your container into a sheltered space like a garage or a shed.Ī disease-resistant, floricane-fruiting cultivar, ‘Natchez’ blooms with pretty pinkish-white flowers in the early spring. If you live in Zones 7 and above, a fresh two-inch layer of mulch put in place before winter hits should keep your plant happy during dormancy by protecting the roots from cold temperatures.īut gardeners in Zones 4 through 6 need to give theirs a bit more protection. Throughout the growing season, remove any broken, dead, or diseased canes. The following year, you’ll get fruit on last year’s primocanes again – now called floricanes – in the summer, and on the newly grown primocanes in the fall. Primocane-fruiting blackberries are even easier to care for, since there’s no need for a spring pruning.Īll you need to do is cut the spent floricanes back to the ground every fall after the plant enters dormancy, and leave the primocanes alone. Laterals should be trimmed back to 12 to 15 inches. Cut all the spent floricanes off the plant and trim the central canes down to three feet again. The blackberries will need another pruning in the fall. This is especially true of erect or semi-erect cultivars.Įarly spring is also a good time to prune the plant back to three feet in height, and snip the lateral branches back to about 12 inches in length. They’ll only go as far as the container allows, which means they can’t overtake your yard or garden. You know how we mentioned that these plants have an impressive sprawl? If you crave blackberries but don’t want an enormous thicket of them, planting them in containers is a good way to keep the canes in check.įor starters, they won’t be able to reproduce easily via underground rhizomes. They tend to grow anywhere from three to 10 feet tall with a similar spread, which might have you asking why in the world you’d want to grow them in containers. They’re also high in fiber: a one-cup serving contains eight grams!īlackberries prefer loamy, well-draining soil with a pH between 5.5 and 7.5. ![]() The berries are antioxidant-rich and contain high levels of vitamins C, E, and K, manganese, and calcium. Regardless of the cultivar, the fruits are typically around an inch in length – sometimes larger and sometimes smaller – and are both sweet and tart, sometimes more of one than the other, depending on the cultivar. ![]() Nevertheless, we are grateful to breeders for cultivating blackberry bushes to have few or no thorns, or to grow just three to four feet tall, or even to bear fruit on primocanes. ursinus are six of the most notable.īut dozens of cultivars exist today, and they’ve been bred so extensively that it’s hard to pinpoint which wild species contributed to their creation in many cases. Plants can be classified as erect, semi-erect, or trailing.Ī number of Rubus species are considered to be types of blackberries R. These bear flowers and fruit on lateral stems. In the first year, a blackberry plant will put out green, tender primocanes, which grow leaves but not flowers or fruits in most cases.Īfter a year of growth and dormancy, the former primocanes become woody, and are then called floricanes.
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