Wild blackberries in the forest and on fallow land often establish themselves and reproduce without human intervention. The climbing plants with their sweet, black fruits are also relatively easy to propagate in the garden.
How can I propagate blackberries in the garden?
Blackberries can be propagated in the garden using cuttings or planters. For cuttings, canes are divided into pieces with three to four pairs of leaves and placed in growing substrate. Lowers are created by pressing long tendrils to the ground, covering them with soil and weighing them down.
Be careful with wild blackberries
Due to the rapid spread and the aromatic fruits, some hobby gardeners are tempted to plant wild blackberry plants in suitable areas in the garden. However, you should think carefully about such a project. Once the roots of wild blackberry plants have grown through the soil at a location for a year or two, later removal is only possible with relatively great effort. Since wild blackberries reproduce themselves via the roots and through sinkers, the usual confinement of bamboo with grids or curbs would not be successful.
Propagate high-yielding blackberry varieties in the garden
The blackberry varieties bred for the garden usually reproduce much less quickly than their wild relatives. Nevertheless, underground root runners can sometimes form, which can be cut off with enough roots if necessary and replanted at another location. Overall, the following types of propagation are available for blackberries:
- Sowing
- Moosen
- Cuttings
- Lowers
Sowing and removing moss are also possible in principle for blackberries, but are of no practical importance due to the high effort and time required.
Propagation by cuttings
If you want to propagate blackberries from cuttings, this has the advantage that the rooted young plant is already of a certain size and can therefore produce a yield more quickly. Ideally, annual canes of the blackberry plant are used for this purpose. But you can also use the harvested canes, which you cut off near the ground in autumn anyway. Divide the blackberry canes so that there are three to four pairs of leaves on each piece. Then remove the bottom two and insert the cuttings (€11.00 on Amazon) deep into a loose growing substrate. You can initially put several cuttings in a pot; you should then keep it evenly moist. The following year, the young blackberry plants are separated and planted outdoors in the fall.
Propagate blackberries using planters
One method for propagating blackberries with little effort is to form sinkers. To do this, ideally in April, long tendrils of the blackberry plant are pressed to the ground about 30 to 50 centimeters below the shoot tip and with some soil and a stone or piece of wood complained. These sinkers should then usually develop roots by autumn and can thus be separated from the mother plant.
Tips & Tricks
Please note that the propagation of protected breeding varieties from specialist retailers is only permitted for your own use.
