We hope(d) to grow red raspberries and found a guy selling some on craigslist. He had a gorgeous raspberry patch and seemed to know what he was doing so I bought some. He dug me 5 massive rootballs with little spring shoots for $20. So it was a low risk deal. He said to plant them and trim off all above ground growth. Which I did. Sadly they have not done much at all. Now to be fair it is possible that I didn't water them nearly enough when they were first in. They got planted in what at the time was a non irrigated section of our yard. So maybe I got bad plants, maybe bad advice, maybe just didn't water enough. But our envisioned raspberry patch looks like this.
Not so good really. The one glimmer of hope is one plant did take. It is growing slowly but clearly still alive.
I've been told these things spread like crazy so maybe we can make a patch out of this one yet, but we think a supplemental fall planting may be in order.
Our raspberries didn't grow much at first either. A friend was giving away some. We have a bunch in the back from one person and some in the front from another. They spent a long time trying to convince us that they were dead. Realizing that we weren't convinced and were still going to weed around them and water them, they sat not doing much but looking healthier. Now three or more months later, they have had a bit of a growth spurt and have more than doubled in height. They still won't have berries this year, but they are definitely growing.
ReplyDeleteI hope they work out for you.
Alison