Well, if instead of cutting back canes each year, let them overwinter and flower the next year and you should get some fruit. Raspberries put out canes the first year , then set fruit on those canes the second, so just cut the canes that have already fruited and you should be good to go. there are ever bearing types that produce both in summer and fall; and if you had these and you cut the canes back each year you would just get the fall crop. IMHO, I doubt you would need more fertilizer.

Our patch of everbearing red raspberries gets cut down to about 10 inches every fall, and then it gets heavily mulched with shredded maple leaves, before the winter sets in. I water them as needed during the growing season. I weed a bit, we have a problem with bindweed. The raspberries started to flower a week ago, and I expect to see ripe fruit by mid-July. The patch gets early morning sun, but in the afternoon, it is in partial shade. They are very easy to grow. Do raspberries require winter chill, to stimulate flowering in the spring?

Thanks. Our problem is that the none of the canes have ever flowered. Blackberries planted nearby are doing just great. We are perpexed. Is it too late for them to flower this year?

I am perplexed, also. Raspberries grow like weeds in our yard, they begin to flower in late June, and continue flowering and fruiting through October. Our tap water is high in calcium and magnesium. I don't have to water the raspberries 'till August, however, there would be some calcium and magnesium in the soil, from water put down the previous season. I give them a dose of Miracle-Grow for acidic plants every spring, diluted with water per the instructions. If your raspberries are everbearing, then it is not too late for them to develop flowers, they have July, August, September, and October left, in 2009. Is it possible that some essential nutrient is lacking in your soil?

Raspberries are of several different kinds.
The once-bearing must keep the new, non flowering canes until the second year.

The so called everbearing kind can fruit well in spite of having all canes cut to the ground every year.

Sounds like annie has the first kind.

Dorman red raspberries are available, on line, from "TyTy", & Heritage red raspberries are available, on line, from "Burpee." According to the respective web-sites, both of these varieties are everbearing. Heritage is also described as fruiting in the fall. My experience with our everbearing red raspberries, over the past 10 or 12 years, has been that they respond well to pruning. I have heard of some gardeners who mow the raspberry patch to the ground every fall, and then rake up the remains. I am not exaggerating, in our yard, raspberries come up in the lawn, with no encouragement, as weeds. There has to be some reason that the poster, "annieshilltop," is having an issue with no flowers. If these varieties are recommended for the climate in Mississippi, then why don't they flower? A rational course of action would be to get the soil analyzed for nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, boron, copper, iron, manganese, molybdenum, and zinc. Might as well get the pH tested at the same time. But this gets expensive. In this situation, my inclination would be to give each shrub one tablespoon of either Miracle-Grow(acidic formula) or Schultz's plant food(acidic formula), diluted with tap water per the manufacturers instructions. I have used both of these products on our raspberries, and also our blueberry shrubs, with good results. It is not necessary, or helpful, to over-fertilize. A single application per growing season should be sufficient. It might take a month to see results, I would not expect flowers to appear right away. Our raspberries are heavily mulched, about 8 inches deep, with shredded maple leaves every fall. The mulch disappears over the following summer, I think the leaves are eaten by worms. The raspberries seem to appreciate the extra nutrition from the leaves, they come up vigorously every spring.

Hi Eric- I know this is not really what your post was about, and perhaps you are already aware, but I felt the need to pass along this warning. You need to stay as far away from TyTy as possible. This is the same nursery that sued to get their deplorable 'Daves Garden Watchdog' rating removed from that site. (as I understood the story anyway). Since we can't review them there, simply Google "TyTy ripoff" or "TyTy scam", and you'll see what I mean. I can't think of an online nursery with a worse reputation than these hucksters. Their cheesy pics are entertaining though, eh?!?! From such as source, I would not trust any info that they've provided... theyÂre itÂs an everbearer, but IÂm seeing other places say that theyÂre not, so IÂm still not sure.

Apparently, not all raspberries fall into the "everbearing/fall" or "summer" bearing groups? For example my Preludes are considered to be Summer raspberries, yet I got lots of fruit off them in their first season (like an everbearing). I see some places referring to Dorman in the everbearing group, and other sites grouping them in with black and purple raspberries (summer bearing). There seems to be some misinformation here.

annieshilltop- Being an avid home grower of raspberries, I've followed this thread, and I'm perplexed. Even with pruning back the tops of the plant, even if it were a summer variety raspberry, I'd expect you to get berries the 2nd year on the bottom of the canes.

For me, I do my raspberry pruning in the spring when it's easier to see that the top of the cane is dead. (I think itÂs often recommended that people do the pruning in the fall, but itÂs easier for me to see in the spring) Once I see that line (between the live area below, and dead area above), I just simply snip them at that line. I guess all I can think of would be to prune them like that If youÂre only snipping off dead cane that certainly couldnÂt hurt anything.

In reference to EricÂs mowing comments Yes, I do mow one of my everbearing raspberry beds to the ground in the fall because itÂs right next to the driveway where the plow will drop the snow during winter. It means that I only get one larger fall crop instead of a summer and fall crop from that bed.

I think zone 8 is on the edge of what Dorman is suppose to tolerate. Any chance you're in more of an 8b and have them in a very hot area besides?

Can you tell us where you got these raspberries from?

Perhaps a picture would help spark a diagnosis?

Like Eric, I always give my raspberries compost in the early spring. Then a little Shake n Feed fertilizer.

The next thing IÂd be looking at was a soil test.

I wish you the best of luck,
-Glenn

Thank you to all who have posted. I'll try to respond to as much as I can in this post. The Dormans came from Aarons Farm in Sumner , GA. I think the Heritage came from Gurney's. As for the soil, we have found it very fertile for our blueberries, blackberries and vegetable garden - all in the same area. Peach, nectarine, and pear trees are doing well also.

Since neither of the varieties have fruited, I think we will give it one more season on the chance that they might still blossom and produce berries this year. (It's much hotter this year than normal so I'm not counting on that happening.) If not, we will fertilize with the Miracle Grow for Acid Loving Plants and see what happens next year - cutting out only the dead canes. If we still don't get any fruit, I'll be in favor of ripping them out and planting more blueberries or raspberries.

Thanks again for your help. As you can tell, I'm definitely unfamiliar with raspberries.

annie,

Do you know the names of your raspberries? If so, we could determine which of the two types they are.

Annie,
Aarons is just another name for TyTy... Please for the sake of all things growing STAY AWAY FROM THEM!!!!!! I learned my lesson the hard way. Don't just take my word for it ; or even Glen Russell's but the mantra of Fruit and Orchard to stay away.

there is a forum on this site called Rate & Review Vendors and on page two you will see listings for TyTy and a list of names they go under also read about Autumn Ridge who is just as bad IMHO as TY TY, STAY AWAY FROM THESE EVIL EMPIRES!!!

Jean-
Annie said above that they are Dorman red and Heritage.
Annie-
Mudflapper is right of course. Aaron's is just another name for the dreaded TyTy. See their reputation . If it were only the Dorman's from TyTy (oops, I mean Aarons), I'd say "we know what the problem is". Even reputable nurseries sometimes get varieties mixed up, and so might say it's quite likely they really aren't Dorman's. But, since you're also having the problem with Heritages from Gurneys, we're back to "I'm not sure". Note: Even Gurneys has a pretty lousy reputation. See here.

You know what I would do? After doing a soil test, I would go to your local friendly nursery and get a potted raspberry that they recommend and stick it in the ground and see how it does. This way you can be sure of the variety, and then you'll know if it's some sort of environmental issue with your area.

I'm not sure about giving them acid loving fertilizer. It might be ok, I'm just not sure... it's not what I do. I'd do a PH test to make sure the PH is decent (Raspberies can tolerate a wide range), and then do compost and a little normal fertilizer... but that's just me.

Keep us informed with whatever you decide to do and how it turns out!

-Glenn

Oops, the Aarons reputation link didn't work. Here it is.

Thank you so much, Glenn and Mudflapper I would never have associated Aarons Farms with the vendor TyTy; I'd never heard of TyTy either until your comments. I had wondered, however, if we had been shipped some variety totally unsuited to our warm/hot climate. As you say, I've even encountered mislabeled plants when buying in person in reputable nurseries.

My first thought was to go to Aaron's to see if they had a Customer Service Dept or more detailed information on the plant needs but no luck there. As for the Heritage berries, I can't be sure just where my husband got them. It could very well have been from Aaron's as well.

I think you have probably hit the nail on the head; we probably do have an unsuitable variety. Still,we will be patient a few more months to see if these will do anything next year.

I agree with your suggestion to try to find a potted berry plant to see if it will perform better. Finding a raspberry plant locally may be our next problem as very few people even attempt raspberries here and few nurseries carry them, especially in summer. That's why we ventured into the unknown of ordering online.

Oh well, we wanted to experiment.

Thanks again for your comments. I'll post again whenever I have anything new to report. I'm so glad I found this forum. I'm sure I'll be coming back to learn more about other fruits and berries. There's much more knowledge here than in lots of nurseries. I'll certainly check for nursery ratings before buying online again.

Ann

Sounds you've got a decent plan!

Don't let this bad experience of being sucked in by TyTy turn you off to online nurseries in the future though. There are plenty of good ones out there, and, as you say, now you know to check the ratings first. The ratings aren't the end-all-be-all though, so sometimes it's good to ask others here as well. Note: Originally, I found it a little difficult to get the DGW ratings, so now the trick I use to find it is simply to Google the wood "scoop" and then the name of the nursery. So, in this case Google "Scoop Gurneys", etc.

The place where I always get my raspberries from is a place called www.NourseFarms.com. They have a perfect GWD 80/80 record (you can check it for yourself now that you know how) and IÂve never seen a single complaint about them. If you search this forum, you will see that everyone who has purchased from them sings their praises.

According to what little info I could find about Dorman, it appears that the flavor was not so good anway. According to this table at Nourse there are actually quite a few raspberries that would work in zone 8 (not that I live there or know first hand. Also, normally I donÂt like growing something on the edge of my zone but in your caseÂ) If it were me, I would look at Prelude, Caroline & Anne. The only problem is that theyÂre done shipping for the season and youÂd have to wait until the spring. (Put your order in during the winter time they sell out)

Agreed. This forum has been invaluable to me. I try to help out with things I know a little about, but I'm here asking questions every day as well.

Glad we could help out! -Glenn