Pruning blackberries can be daunting, but it’s actually very simple. They are a bramble, so many people treat them like raspberries but they can’t be. In this video I will show you how to prune blackberries for larger yields, bigger healthier plants, and a managable plant that won’t take over your garden.
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Thanks Luke! I hope to grow berries soon, and I know nothing about it. Great tips! Especially that you maintain raspberries and blackberries differently. I'd like to see you compare the two to blueberries also. Have a great weekend!
Does this work for potted blackberries?
Do you net them to keep the birds from eating all of them?
I think my raspberry died. Can you do a video on concord grapes?
I dont touch my blackberries and they produce tons of fruit. I let them go wild.
I wish mine wouldn't have died…. not giving up though. I will buy more as soon as I can….
Roughly how many years til the blackberry cane is done? Mine look like what you said to cut when done with 2nd year. I've been doing like the raspberries also. Didn't prune this year cuz I didn't have time but will cut back instead of off this time
So this is the time of year to trim them? The end of November? For the first time, this summer I got a raspberry bush and a blackberry bush and I'm just trying to figure them both out. Is this the time that you should trim the raspberry bush as well?
I read not to prune them till March. So we can prune now? Before I knew I had to prune, my BlackBerry bushes got about 12 fet!
I have corner posts with lateral wires around mine. Use those tomato clips to hold up the canes to the wires
I have a 2.5 yr old plant that produced great this year. In the spring, a large growth shot up from the root ball during flowering, it was like the arm of god. It was easily getting over 10ft tall and had appendages left and right that were at least 10 ft long. It's good to know I should cut this back. It's hard to believe how big it got in one season.
It is true you need 2 blueberry plants to have fruit?
Any sort of fertilizer? I inherited an enormous blackberry patch in an orchard on a property we just bought this fall. We pruned as you described. The former owner mentioned lime I think. I should’ve written it down.
Those must be thornless blackberry plants.
Thank you ~ now I know the difference between old canes and new and I can prune more effectively. Did you take the cuttings and root them to grow new plants??!!
Our blackberry bush is just now, after five years, starting to have leaves. Deer may have been getting it. We put a chicken wire over it and it now has leaves! Yay!
How do you prune over groan bl Kerry bush?.
Bush? Have a whole mess on the ground spreading along fence. It 6 feet tall.
Sooo, we only cut primacane by half? And remove last year’s (now dead) fruiting cane? This was to be my first year with a decent harvest and pruning and I was going to bring it way down. Also, how much should I cut back if I’m going to move a plant? I have one that was an offshoot and established itself well enough to have some fruit. I want to move it befor it get really ungainly and starts competing with my central air unit.
Primocane blackberries this doesn’t need this.
Question: What about old unmanaged blackberries? We bought a property that has them about 5 feet tall in a thick mass. How low should I cut them back? I'd rather save them than kill them.
Hi Luke. I would like to share a few tips, having learned about growing blackberries for a couple years now. It is recommended to summer prune erect and semi-erect blackberries when the primocane is 36in to 48in tall. This will encourage lateral branches to develop for increased yields next year. If you don't summer prune, you'll have one very long cane. Then in late winter or early spring, when the plant is dormant, cut back the laterals to between 12in and 18in to produce good fruit size and make the fruit easier to pick. You can wait to cut down spent floricanes until you prune the laterals in late winter or early spring because there is evidence to support the spent floricanes return sugar to the roots which supports the new primocane growth next growing season.
We've had unsupported 12 feet straight up growth from on blackberries. We've learned to cut them, the new growth about 3 feet to 4 feet early on and then the lateral growth takes over. Like growing grape vines on horizontal wires. Several stakes and wires at different heights make for WAY EASY picking as those thorns love bare skin!
I used a cattle panel arch to trellis mine in the summer of 2021. This last summer they had gone from one side of the trellis to the other side, set down roots, and started coming back over to the original side I had put 2 plants on. I don't remember exactly how many berries I got this year, but it was somewhere between 6 and 7 gallon size zip lock bags.