How to grow blackberries and hybrid berries

With their large, succulent, juicy berries, this delicious range of soft fruits are sweeter than wild brambles and better behaved too. Train these vigorous plants along supporting wires for abundant summer harvests. There are even compact varieties for containers if you’re short on space.

Thornless varieties such as ‘Lock Ness’ are easier to train and harvest, yet just as delicious

A hybrid plant is the offspring produced by cross-pollinating one specific cultivar with another different cultivar. This process of cross-pollination, rather than pollination between plants of the same cultivar, generally creates stronger, healthier, improved offspring, said to have ‘hybrid vigour’.

hybrid

There is a tempting array of delicious blackberry varieties to choose from, with large, juicy, richly flavoured fruits. These can vary in sweetness and size, depending on the variety, with some up to 5cm (2in) long. Cropping time and duration vary too, from early summer to early autumn, and the flowers can be white or pink. Some varieties are even thornless, such as ‘Loch Ness’, which makes pruning, training and picking easier.

Plant size is a key consideration with blackberries, as they can grow quite large and need to be trained onto horizontal wires to keep them tidy. So choose a variety to suit your available space – very vigorous varieties can grow up to 4m (14ft) wide, with less vigorous types 2.5m (8ft) wide. There are also a few compact varieties that can be grown in containers with no supports, such as ‘Little Black Prince’, which only reaches 1m (3¼ft) tall and wide.

There are also several blackberry hybrids and closely related species to choose from, grown in a similar way and producing fruit with various delicious aromatic flavours. The main choices are:

• Tayberry – a raspberry and blackberry cross. The fruit is red and longer than a raspberry. It is sharper in flavour than a raspberry, but usually sweeter than a loganberry. Best used for jams and cooking, but can also be eaten fresh. Early season crop. Several varieties available 

• Loganberry – a raspberry and blackberry cross. Fruits are dark red, longer and sharper tasting than raspberries. Ideal for jams and cooking, but can also be eaten fresh. Several varieties available 

• Boysenberry – a loganberry, raspberry and dewberry cross. Thornless, very hardy and moderately vigorous. Heavy crops of juicy black fruits with a wild blackberry flavour. Drought resistant and needs well-drained soil. Early season crop 

• Tummelberry – a tayberry and unnamed hybrid seedling cross. Thorny, medium vigour, suitable for colder areas. Moderate crops of medium-sized red berries. Can be eaten raw, but better made into jam. Early season crop 

• Dewberry – a combination of several Rubus species (including R. caesius and R. ursinus). Thorny, can be grown as ground cover or on a support. Small black fruits with a grey bloom. Popular in the US. Early season crop 

• Wineberry – an East Asian species, moderately vigorous with attractive stems covered with soft, bright red bristles. Moderate crop of small, sweet, juicy berries turning from golden yellow to red when ripe. Mid-season crop.

When choosing varieties, look in particular for those with an RHS Award of Garden Merit (AGM), which shows they performed well in trials, so should grow and crop reliably. See our list of AGM fruit and veg.

You can also see many berries and other soft fruits, including blackberries, growing in the fruit and veg plots in all the RHS gardens, so do visit to see how they are grown, compare the varieties and pick up useful tips. 

Choose a sunny, sheltered site to get the best crop, although all these berries will tolerate light shade too. They prefer moisture-retentive but free-draining soil. If you have chalky, sandy or heavy clay soil, dig in plenty of garden compost or well-rotted manure (two buckets per square metre/yard). Before planting, put a support system of horizontal wires in place – see training blackberries. Each plant will grow to 2.5–3.5m (8–11ft) wide, and up to 4.5m (13ft) for a vigorous variety, so make sure you allow enough space.

Winter is the ideal planting time, although plants bought in pots can be planted all year round (but avoid planting in hot, dry weather). Position in the ground at the same level they were growing previously. Prune straight after planting – see Pruning and Training, below.

With bare-root plants, these are only available from late autumn to spring, and should be planted straight away. Position with first roots no more than 5–8cm (2–3in) below the soil surface.

All these berries are easy to plant – similar to most climbers and shrubs. See the following guides for full details.

Most blackberries and their relatives are vigorous scrambling plants that need to be trained onto supports to keep them under control. For the best crop, feed annually and water in dry weather while the fruits are forming.

To keep these vigorous scrambling plants under control, it’s best to train them along horizontal wires fixed to a wall, fence or posts. This should be set up before planting. Space the horizontal wires 45cm (18in) apart, with the lowest wire 30–45cm (1–1½ft) from the ground.

Most blackberries and hybrid/species berries produce their fruit on stems (or canes) that grew the previous spring and summer. Old stems need to be pruned out and new ones trained onto the supports:

• Pruning should be done every year after fruiting to remove the old, fruited stems at the base, which stimulates new stems to grow in spring for a crop the following year (ie their second year). Left unpruned, plants will grow into a tangled, thorny mass of stems that fruit less well and are difficult to harvest

• Training the stems onto wires has two main aims: to separate the old and new stems, so it’s easy to know which ones to prune out; and to keep these vigorous and usually thorny plants under control, so harvesting is easy. Tying in the stems as they grow is an ongoing process from spring to autumn

For more details, see our guide below.

Once settled in, blackberries and hybrid berries are usually healthy, vigorous plants. To keep them under control, prune them annually and tie the new stems to supports as they grow. Birds like the fruits too, so protect your precious harvest with netting raised up on a framework of canes, or grow your plant in a fruit cage. For other common problems, see below.