[NAFEX] Heritage Raspberries in GA
Richard Moyer
ramoyer at gmail.com
Wed Jan 4 15:02:06 EST 2006
*Melinda,*
*Chris gave some good info and links; the NC State HIL series on raspberries
and blackberries have been useful for us.*
**
*My father in Augusta had a similar problem to yours: he bought so-called
Heritage raspberries from a Georgia nursery, they thrived but never bloomed
in Augusta, probably due to the heat. We dug them all out and I traded them
here for other plants. Once they bloomed here in mountains, they turned out
to be wineberries, and I had egg on my face. I learned the hard way what
Jesus said: By their fruits you will know them. One family I shared the
plants with has adapted by making wineberry instead of raspberry jam as
planned. I didn't have a Heritage plant then to compare, but wineberries
have many more prominent orange hairs on the stems, you could do a Google
image search and see wineberry stems.
http://www.ars-grin.gov/cor/pwc/rubus-art.html This link was posted by our
own Joseph Postman, and is a watercolor of wineberry over 100 yrs old, with
good detail of the larger, straight thorns and the many smaller hairs.*
**
*We bought Heritage from another nursery, and they are yielding for my
father very well, with mulch and adequate water in a raised bed, as Chris
recommends. *
**
*J.C. Raulston, a generous plantsman from NC, once wrote he may have killed
more plants than anyone alive, as he learned what would work in your
conditions. So don't be afraid to ask, or to get rid of what doesn't work.*
**
*Richard Moyer*
*East Tennessee, 1800', Zone 6*
**
*
*
>
> 3. Heritage Raspberries in Georgia (John McCuan)
> Message: 3
> Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2006 13:11:48 -0800 (PST)
> From: John McCuan <wawo at yahoo.com>
> Subject: [NAFEX] Heritage Raspberries in Georgia
> To: nafex at lists.ibiblio.org
> Message-ID: <20060103211148.63294.qmail at web31908.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
>
> This is my first posting to the list: I appreciate you all being out
> there.
>
> In February 2003, I planted fall-bearing Heritage raspberries in my Zone
> 7 garden, outside Atlanta. I obtained the canes from Lawsons Nursery
> (known for heritage apples), also in north Georgia. I planted them in a
> raised bed formerly used for vegetables, so the soil was pretty good. I
> mulched with pine straw, and the canes all looked quite healthy.
>
> But, in three seasons, I've never gotten a single berry.
>
> After the first unsuccessful year, I mowed all the canes down,
> added fertilizer, checked pH, and mulched again with pine straw. Still no
> berries.
>
> Last winter, I started thinking perhaps the berries had been
> mislabled and were spring bearing. So I divided my bed into thirds,
> cutting one third entirely to the ground, pruning one bed heavily with only
> a few canes left, and pruning the last bed lightly. The standing canes
> seemed to start to produce buds, but only green centers of flowers
> appeared, there were no petals at all on any cane. The canes grew
> healthily enough, leaves nice and green. As I searched for petals I'd look
> up and see the wild blackberries nearby white with blossoms; it was a
> bumper year for blackberries. But no raspberries
>
> I couldn't help hope for autumn berries, and carefully observed
> the raspberries to try to figure out what the problem was. In June, there
> was some Japanese beetle damage, but not too much. During the high heat of
> summer (a number of days in the 90s), the canes did not look very healthy;
> the leaves damaged by the Japanes beetles withered, and some looked
> slightly maroon colored. I did water them. As the days cooled in
> September, new green leaves appeared, but no buds and no berries.
>
> Although I don't have much experience, my best guess at what is happening
> is the canes suffer enough insect and heat strees that they don't produce
> in the fall. I have no idea what the petal-less flower centers are.
>
> A horticulturalist friend said that last year was a great one
> for berries, if mine didn't produce last year they never will, and I
> should dig them out.
>
> I'd appreciate any input concerning my berries, and any advice on what
> cultivars do well in Georgia.
>
> Thanks to all,
>
> Melinda McCuan
> (Zone 7, outside of Atlanta in Dallas, Georgia)
>
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