Blackberries Rubus Fruticosus Fruit Plants

Blackberries plants are delicious fruiting canes that flower in early spring and produce deep black fruits from August to October. Rubus fruticosus, the bramble blackberry, is our native blackberry, but there are many compact varieties and thornless cultivars more suitable for UK gardens.

All About Rubus Fruticosus the Bramble Blackberry
UK native blackberries are produced by a plant called Rubus fruticosus, which is more often called bramble. It has long thorny 2-3 metre canes that scramble through hedgerows, arch, or drop to the ground and take root. Evergreen bramble leaves are palmately compound and divided up into several oval leaflets with thorny mid-ribs.

In late spring, masses of white to pale pink five-petalled flowers bloom and attract numerous pollinators. Once pollinated, the fruits begin to develop first turning green, then red, and finally ripening to black in late summer.  We know these fruits as blackberries, although they aren’t actually berries but aggregate drupelets.   

Rubus Fruticosus is commonly tangled through UK hedgerows, woodlands, and scrubland. Its blackberries are an important food source for wildlife as well as a staple in the foraging calendar.

Blackberries are sweetly delicious when they receive lots of sunlight and are packed with vitamin C. They are tasty straight from the canes, but also in wine, pies, and crumbles. They freeze and dry well too.

Blackberry Cultivars
Rubus Fruticosus is not the only blackberry bush available to gardeners. There are numerous cultivars that are less unruly but still produce sweet, tasty blackberries.
Cultivar blackberry plants trained along a wall or fence are less vicious than bramble, but are still easy to grow. Good blackberry cultivars include Blackberry Rubus Laciniatus, which is also an excellent fruiting ground cover for slopes.  

Thornless and Compact Blackberry Plants
If you don’t want to train long canes, then compact varieties like Blackberry Little Black Prince are a better choice for small gardens and raised beds. Compact blackberry bushes are bred with shorter stems. They are often self-supporting but produce just as much fruit.
Thornless blackberry plants bypass brambles’ vicious thorns, and modern varieties produce lots of sweet fruit. Thornless blackberries such as Blackberry Rubus Laciniatus are excellent for child and pet-friendly gardens.

How To Grow Blackberries
Bramble will grow in nearly all poor uncultivated soil as indicated by their ability to run riot in hedgerows. Cultivars retain most of that hardiness but you'll get a better harvest in moist, well-drained fertile soil with an annual top-up of rich organic mulch. Full sun and shelter are best, but they will grow in partial shade too. 
Unless you have a self-supporting bush variety, blackberries need support. Train them along a series of sturdy wires or trellis and tie in new canes as they emerge. 
The majority of blackberry plants fruit on the previous season’s growth. The best time to prune them is in autumn, so the blackberry bush has time to grow new stems ready for the following year’s fruit. Remove fruited one-year-old canes with sharp loppers but leave the new canes.
Established blackberries are drought tolerant, but watering them in spells of drought will increase the blackberry size and help prevent leaf mildew.