Sorry I was so unclear. I think faster than I can write, so at times, my statements make little sense. I see the black raspberry question was answered, no they do not sucker. The farther you space red raspberries, the longer it will take to fill the space to form a solid row, but no matter how far, they will eventually fill the row. The 12 to 24 inch is not the space between the row, but how wide your planting should be, how wide the row should be. They grow in 4 directions, left, right, forward, backward. If your row is too wide, they tend to stay moist, which invites disease. Yes, any trellis method works. You can modify to fit your needs if you need to. Eskota mentioned Autumn Bliss. that was developed by Victoria Knight in the UK. I heard it was great! She also developed Valentina, an orange colored highly disease resistant, excellent tasting raspberry. Only sold in the UK, I would kill for a cutting!! I'm trying a number of new cultivars this year Double Gold - (planted last fall) Blush pink in color, excellent flavor Crimson Night - (planted last fall) Deep, dark red, excellent flavor this spring I will be adding... Rosanna - (From Italy) sweet as candy Honey Queen - ( a yellow out of Canada, very hardy, excellent taste) Polka - (Developed in Poland, rated very high) Black raspberries Jewell - rich taste, 7 ft cains, productive and vigorous Allen - sweetest of the blacks Purple raspberries Royality - can harvest when red, or wait till it's purple. Summer bearing Prelude - excellent early season variety Encore - excellent late season variety Taylor - said to be the best tasting raspberry Blackberries Navaho - upright thornless, great tasting, some say the best. Apache - upright thornless, larger fruit than other Arkansas thornless, erect varieties. Since these are upright, they will be trellised into a fan shape. Hybrids Loganberry - just because it is so unusual, 10 ft cains, unique flavor. Makes excellent jam, deep red Tayberry - The Tayberry is a cane fruit cross between an Aurora Blackberry and an improved tetraploid Raspberry. It was developed by the Scottish Crop Research Institute and is grown for its sweeter, larger, aromatic fruits that have an excellent flavor. The Tayberry are a beautiful bright purple color This post was edited by Drew51 on Fri, Mar 22, 13 at 0:30

Since you bumped and nobody replied yet... I'll give you my less than expert experience. I don't thin the canes at all. I nip the buds on them so they will branch, but no thinning. With the ones I have been growing for a few years (some mystery OSH variety which was labeled Bababerry but I suspect is more likely Heritage) they seem to do well this way. They start to get long and floppy enough to require more work around July, so that's when I scalp the longest vines and tie the rest together or to some convenient sage bushes so they won't look unattractive. Either way, they start to look pretty ragged and unattractive by November. (Remember, I'm in zone 10a, so my growing and fruiting season will be different from yours.) If you want to do any weeding, it's best to do it all in January-February, before the new growth, because once the new vines start coming in, it's a "prickly" business to get your hands deep in there. Well, it's prickly for me, because I let them grow as they please. One thing about everbearing raspberries is that the new canes don't sprout in the same place as last year's cane. In fact, I find new runners in strange places, like in cracks in the sidewalk and my lawn, yards from the bed. So they're not so well-behaved enough that you can count on them to stay organized the way you want. The USDA lists blackberries as an aggressive, invasive weed (!!), and having grown both blackberries and raspberries (their close cousin) I can see how they would reach that conclusion. They will easily take up a nomadic lifestyle and take over your backyard if you don't keep an eye on them.

After experimenting with raspberries here in NC for a few years, I've come to the conclusion that I should focus on varieties that crop early. This year, I had good crops on my Black Hawk, Prelude, Heritage (floricanes that I left standing last fall), and Royalty plants in May and early June. I was really impressed with my rambling patch of Heritage canes. They've never produced a lot of berries on primocanes -- that's why I decided to try for a second-year crop. By contrast, my Heritage, Autumn Bliss, and Caroline primocanes have produced paltry crops so far, in large part, I assume, to a combination of heat and insect pressure (wasps and yellow jackets, primarily). I'll add that virtually all of my plants get morning sun, afternoon shade, and supplemental irrigation in dry weather.

Well first of all, I am trying to find out the name of this blue walking iris. Then how I am going to get the plantlet to root. It will never hit the soil. The stem it is on is way to long, and the plantlet is right in the middle of the stem. The leaves are not soft and 'droopy' like the other walking iris'. These leaves are over 3 feet long 'swords', like northern iris'. Very stiff and upright, no bending in them at all. To get to the soil, the stem would have to snap in half and that would kill the plantlet, I assume. Unless I can somehow take it out of the stem and plant it myself. It is a 'normal leaf' that out of the blue bloomed! It isnt a special bloom stem that I recall iris' produce when they bloom. That is what I am trying to find out. The other walking iris leaves are only like 1-2 feet long, and they are very soft and droopy, and the plantlets are produced on the end of the leaves. So unless this is not a walking iris and it is a fluke that it produced a plantlet in a regular leaf, it will never touch soil,the stem is to long and strong.