Which berries have thorns

Sign in Register. News Guardian. Recent queries. Send a query. Lucky dip. Any answers? Nooks and crannies. Semantic enigmas. The body beautiful. Most varieties have little to no disease issues and the only pest problems are birds stealing the berries. Unlike wild blackberries, the thornless varieties grow long straight vine-like branches called canes. You can trellis the canes to keep them off the ground, conserving space in the garden, and making fruit harvest easier.

Install plants at least three feet apart to allow sun exposure and airflow to the canes, as well as room to spread. Proper can pruning can be intimidating, as you don't want to risk removing canes you will need for next year.

Follow our guide for adequate care of your blackberry plants. When you get your plants, tie the canes to your trellis.

When these canes are fruiting, usually during the summer, the plant will start growing new canes that do not have blooms or fruit production. Just ignore these and let them grow. After fruit production is done, cut the old fruiting canes down to the main plant or ground.

Be careful not to cut the new non-fruiting canes as these will need to be trellised to produce next year's crop. Throughout the rest of the year, the plant will produce random cane growth, which can be tied to the trellis or cut. Don't be afraid to remove excess canes if your trellis is full.

Typically take off a quarter to half of the canes that the plants produce. You can't go wrong with any of the thornless varieties that are available and here are a few of our favorites:. Arapaho - This variety produces early and is very productive.

The fruiting period is not as long as Ouachita, and the fruit is slightly smaller, but the seeds are small as well. Apache - An erect thornless blackberry similar to Arapaho with larger fruit and seed, ripening 15 days later than Arapaho. The Apache Blackberry is very productive and selected because of its great flavor, good yield and very large fruit. In various parts of the United States, wild blackberries are sometimes called "black-caps", a term more commonly used for black raspberries, Rubus occidentalis.

What kind of berries grow on a vine? Blackberries Rubus spp. While the plants are technically referred to as canes, it is common for people to refer to them as vines and to call a large area of these thorny growths brambles. How many leaves does a blackberry bush have? The leaves are made up of three to five leaflets forming around a center ridge.

Turn over the leaf. Blackberries have a row of thorns on the ridge in the center of the leaflets. How do you grow marionberry? Dig in inches of good compost or manure into the top foot of the soil the autumn prior to planting. Plant the marionberry in the early spring, to an inch up from the base but not covering the crown of the plant. Tamp the soil around the plant firmly and water it in well. Do all blackberry bushes have thorns? Most thornless blackberries grow on semi-erect canes.

These canes grow 20 feet long and arch over if left untended. They grow best with some support. Researchers have developed a few thornless erect and trailing blackberry cultivars, although most cultivars have thorns. Why do brambles have thorns? Mr Gilman's speculation is probably correct; the thorns encourage selective consumption of the fruit, especially by birds who are likely to spread the seeds widely.

It should also be noted that brambles were selectively cultivated by humans to have thorns so that they could be used for enclosing fields.

What is a blackberry cane?