[Lesley Silvester]

When is the right time to plant raspberry canes? I was given some from someone else's garden but they died. Is it too late now?

[HesterF]

I thought they were pretty resilient and could go in any time. I bought some last winter that went in as bare root - two lots of ten canes all took, the third lot all failed so the nursery is sending me free replacements this year. But my mum brings over her wandering spare canes whenever she comes so I've been planting those - one lot summer of last year which are all thriving, one lot in the autumn last year which got dug up by the ducks and failed and another lot this summer which are looking good at the moment except for chicken damage

h

[Dan]

This is a good time of year - they are best planted when dormant, between October and March.

[ellied]

I'm looking for some more - when do you take them back to near the ground and can you grow new ones off the pruning cuttings?

[HesterF]

I think it depends whether they're summer fruiting or autumn fruiting. I think the summer fruiting ones should have the old canes which have finished fruiting cut back to the ground about now, the autumn fruiting are pruned in the spring. But then I'm confused because my new canes were summer fruiting but are fruiting at exactly the same time as the autumn fruiters. Not sure about cuttings but mine are already spreading all over the place so I reckon it would be easier to let them do that and then split them at root level.

H

[cans]

Hi,
I cut back my summer and autumn fruiting canes once they have finished fruiting.  That way I get more than one use out of them....  tasty bites for the goats 

[Lesley Silvester]

I think a visit to the garden centre is called for.

[HesterF]

Or you can get them delivered. Mine came from Keepers nursery (mainly because I ordered all of our fruit trees from them too) and were better quality than those I've seen in the garden centre.

H

[Carse Goodlifers]

I assume when you say the ones that you were given died - they died because they were never planted?
If they were planted and they then died - it could be raspberry root rot that you have and unfortunately you can't do anything about that except grow rasps in pots.  I believe that a rasp root rot resistant variety may not be that far away which would be great news to a lot of commercial growers.

Rasp varieties with the prefix 'Glen' have been bred in Scotland as part of a commercial breeding programme for soft fruit growers and the supermarkets so they are generally good varieties.
Glen Ample is a good variety, big fruit that keeps well too and its thornless 
Autumn Bliss is a Autumn fruiter - smaller fruits but thorny 

[Lesley Silvester]

They were dug up one day and planted the next by which time, despite having their ends wrapped in wet newspaper, they looked a bit dry. The continued to dry out over the next few days.