If I bush hog my tame blackberries down this fall, will they come back next spring?
Add your voice! Click below to answer. ThriftyFun is powered by your wisdom!
Yes, and they will come back thicker.
From my experience, careful pruning can even increase crops....more blackberries! YUM!!!
If the plants are healthy, they should come back next year. But don't expect berries the first year after cutting them to the ground.
The first year's canes are called primocanes. They do not bear fruit. The next year, the primocanes become floricanes, they produce flowers, then fruit. Then they die. This is Nature's way of pruning the plant.
If there is a reason to prune the primocanes, I guess it's OK. I would not prune the floricanes. You would be pruning away fruit bearing cane, especially the tips.
i agree about maybe taking two years to bear fruit after cutting back severely. There is some controversy about this but it seems most agree that it may take two years for berries, so you will need to have a year to get the canes back.
Maybe bush-hog half and prune the other half so you may have berries next year?
Maybe I should have consulted my notes on blackberries before posting because I wasn't aware of controversy. Unless I'm mistaken, there are plants that will bear a small crop of fruit on the first year's canes, late in the season.
Add your voice! Click below to answer. ThriftyFun is powered by your wisdom!
