When to prune blackberries?
- Botanical name
- Rubus fruticosus
- Family
- Rosaceae
Blackberries are pruned from July to October. They are planted from October to March. They are harvested from July to September.
Blackberries are woody perennials. The edible part is the fruit.
Pruning cuts out the canes that have fruited and ties this year's new ones to the support. Those will fruit next season, and the old ones never again.
A new plant is cut back after planting, so it carries nothing in the first year. The crop comes from the canes that grow after that cut.
A blackberry is harmed by a warm spell in midwinter followed by cold. Low temperature on its own does it no harm.
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Blackberries through the year
- pruning
- planting
- harvest
In short
Growing conditions
Are blackberries toxic to cats and dogs?
No. Blackberries are not toxic to cats and dogs.
Pests and diseases
Listed here is every problem for which the sources name this plant as a host. The problems are not listed in order of how common they are.
- Signs
- Colonies of small aphids sit on the shoot tips and the underside of the leaves. The leaf curls and puckers, and sticky honeydew is left on everything below. The viruses they carry are more dangerous than the feeding itself.
- Prevention
- Go easy on nitrogen, because soft sappy growth is what aphids are looking for. Encourage the predators (ladybirds, lacewings, parasitic wasps). Use a reflective mulch, which puts them off settling, and a strong jet of water to knock the colony off the tips.
- What to do
- Potassium soap works on contact and only while it is wet, so it has to reach the underside of the leaf. On drought-loving plants and in heat it can scorch, so apply it in the evening.
- Signs
- A ripening, still firm fruit gets tiny puncture holes and collapses within days. In the flesh there is a white larva. Unlike the ordinary fruit flies this one attacks undamaged fruit that is not yet overripe, so it is not a sign that the fruit has already spoiled but the reason it spoils.
- Prevention
- Pick as the fruit ripens and leave no overripe, damaged or fallen fruit on the plant or under it. Pheromone traps hung on the shady side of the bush or the tree do not put the population down, but they tell you whether the fly is already about and when it is time to protect. In a garden beside a wood or scrub hang them at the boundary first, because the fly overwinters in the wild.
- What to do
- Once the fruit is set, protect it with a very fine net, the mesh under one millimetre, because an ordinary net against birds does not hold the fly back. On top of that, strict hygiene: remove and dispose of every overripe and fallen fruit.
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Related plants
The plants below are in the same botanical family (Rosaceae).
Sources about the plant: CliniTox Pflanzengifte, GBIF Backbone Taxonomy, Iowa State University Extension, NC State Extension Plant Toolbox, Penn State Extension, Royal Horticultural Society, University of Illinois Extension, Wikidata. Checked between 14 and 28 August 2026. The problem descriptions also draw on: Clemson Cooperative Extension, EPPO Global Database, University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of Extension, Utah State University Extension.