@@MikeDawson1 thanks for watching! I hope you’ll sign up for our newsletter at rudysoriginal.com/subscribe. That way you’ll know the exact date to keep an eye out because we sell out overnight.

Yes, you can tip-start from the plants you bought this past spring! That's what we did when we first received 24 Heritage Boysenberry starts in 2017 from my cousin, Alice Masek. My husband, Tom, propagated 900 plants in the fall of 2017 from the 24 vines we started in Fallbrook before we ever got our first boysenberry crop. Then we dug them up in March, brought them to our newly purchased farm in Orland, CA, and planted them here. We now have 2400 vines! Good luck propagating. Just remember to keep all your new tip-starts watered throughout their root development, about 4 to 5 months.

Thanks so much for the information. I'm very excited and hopeful that I can get these vines going! Do you think its a concern that there are lots of wild Himalayan blackberries behind out fence where we live here in Grass Valley? Think they might cross pollinate?

@@bertobean1 thanks for asking! Boysenberries are a hybrid and are self-pollinating. I’m not sure if there would be a problem with cross-pollinating or not.

Great! I'm so glad you are growing boysenberries in north Wales!

Thanks!

Thank you! I hope it's helpful!

Hi! We're pruning out the spent (dead) canes now in September, but they can be pruned over several months' time, actually. As soon as the floricanes (the ones that just bore fruit) are done producing their boysenberries in late spring, you can prune them out at ground level. It's a bit easier to tell which ones to prune if you wait until September because they'll be brown and look dead. That's how they are supposed to look. They don't continue to live after they're done giving you berries. Your old floricanes will be surrounded by the new, red primocanes with green leaves that emerge each spring to replace the floricanes. They will bear next year's boysenberries. Even the leaves look different on primocanes. Your old floricanes you'll be pruning out will have leaves of three, while the new-growth primocanes will have leaves of seven. It's a cycle that is perpetuated by the roots each year. The way the leaves change is that the new primocanes will shed their leaves in winter and go dormant. Then in early spring (late February, early March) their new floricane leaves of three will emerge just before they bloom. I know I answered more questions than the one you asked, but hope this helps give you an overall idea of how the boysenberry cycle works. Enjoy taking care of your boysenberry vines!

Hi, thanks for asking! We will have new bare root vines ready in late February/early March, depending on weather and the development of the root clusters. Please sign up for our newsletter because we have sold out overnight the last two years even though we’ve put in 1000 vines each time. Go to rudysoriginal.com/subscribe

That's the beauty of tip-starting! The vine tip that's been placed into the ground won't continue growing more shoots, necessarily, because that's already happened over the summer. The tip that stays connected to the mother plant goes into the ground and will develop roots over time (16-20 weeks) to sustain a new plant. Once the roots are the size of a softball, you will cut the mothervine tip free and put it back up on the trellis, where it will form blossoms that become boysenberries in late spring. You'll dig up the roots and have a new boysenberry vine!

@@boysenberryfarm7863 My Boysenberry plant is 3 years old...wish I would have done this years ago. It's still very small but produced berries this year. Still not enough for any boysenberry jelly :( I will have to see how many tips there is growing and put them in pots of soil now and just let them root. Besides that, is it possible to plant stem cuttings and propagrate that way too from a longer vine?

@@plantbasedprepper thanks for asking! I tried doing it that way before I learned how to tip-start. I took cuttings and planted them with rooting hormone, placed them under grow lights, kept them moist, and within 3 weeks they were all dead. I talked to a professional propagator who grows by the millions, and he said the boysenberry is a hybrid and must be tip-started. Maybe if you were a miracle worker with a perfect greenhouse environment, you could propagate with cuttings. It's a sure bet with tip-starts, though!

@@boysenberryfarm7863 I was actually asking a different question. With growing using the tip starting method...you are putting the stem from the mother plant upside down. From all of the cutting methods I've learned, they state, do not put the stem upside down. However, with tip starts, do you just cut off the upside down stem after or does it matter that you have that one stem upside down?

You have to leave the tip of the stem (that you bury) connected to the mother plant until roots have actually developed underground from that tip. We have propagated thousands of boysenberry plants that way. You do not cut the stem free until the tip that has been buried in the dirt for the last 16 to 20 weeks has developed enough roots on its own while still connected to the mother plant. When it has enough roots, you can cut it free and put the rest of the cane that is still connected to the mother plant back up on the trellis line.

Hi! Boysenberry vines start producing berries in their second year.

@@boysenberryfarm7863 thank you!

exactly, I'm wondering if she thins out the remaining canes from each crown to only keep the 6 strongest?

Sounds like a great idea! I would love to see a picture of them when they're all in bloom! The bees will be so happy! The boysenberries will be easy to pick from an arched trellis!

Hi! Thanks for asking! Your boysenberry vines will grow roots that will need no competition from any other plants once they mature. An interesting backstory you might like to know...Walter Knott of Knott's Berry Farm got his first boysenberry plants from my grandfather, Rudy Boysen, the originator of the boysenberry, back in 1932.

Hi! Thanks for asking! Back in 1932, Walter Knott got his boysenberry plants from my grandfather, Rudy Boysen, like the story says. We at Boysen Berry Farm grow clones from my grandfather’s original plant, a the DNA of which was confirmed by the USDA in Corvallis, OR. Ours was a match to a boysenberry plant that was bought from Mr. Knott back in the 1940s. I cannot speak for what type of boysenberry plants you have obtained from Knotts berry farm. I do know that many boysenberry varieties have been developed over the years, however. Ours was the only match out of a study done by the USDA in 2017, comparing DNA of 28 different varieties of Boysenberries. The difference is in the flavor! We will have clones of our Rudy’s Original Heritage Boysenberry vines available soon only at our farm in Orland, CA in 1 gallon pots. We propagated about 300 and are busy potting them right now!

Hi! The vines you have right now that are long will bloom and bear fruit! Wait until after you harvest your boysenberries. Then prune the vines that gave you berries. The new ones coming up (called primocanes) need to grow so don’t prune them until after they’ve given you boysenberries the following year. Enjoy!

@@boysenberryfarm7863 thank you so much 😊

The vines can survive down to 8° if you mulch them in winter.

Oops, my mistake! Zone 10 will work! Sorry for any confusion.

@@boysenberryfarm7863 Thanks! 😅

Hi Mike, thanks for asking! The answer is yes, after February 20,2023 through March, but it depends on where you live. US zones 6-9 are best for growing boysenberries.

@@boysenberryfarm7863 I'm in Kentucky so that shouldn't be a problem.

@@MikesPOV that's so exciting to know that my Grandpa Rudy Boysen's boysenberries might soon be growing in Kentucky!

@@boysenberryfarm7863 I'm the one who wrote an article about your Grandpa Rudy and Walter Knott.

That is very exciting to know that your vines have lasted for so many decades! Aren’t they amazing? So glad that you still get to enjoy eating boysenberries with heritage rootstock! You can definitely taste the difference!