Propagating Blackberries by Tip-Rooting

Reader Contribution by Esther Coco Boe
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Adobe Stock/Unkas Photo

Instead of the more traditional tip-layering, learn about propagating blackberries using a tip-rooting, which doesn’t upset your soil health.

As a child, I recall harvesting blackberries with my sisters and cousins along an abandoned railroad track. We had a few scary moments when we unsettled snakes. (In reality those snakes were probably moving as fast as possible, trying to get away from all of our noise and feet.) And we would return home with scratches all over our arms and hands, but with buckets full of juicy berries for mom to make into jelly and delicious cobblers.

Last year, my husband and I decided to add a thornless blackberry variety to a raised bed in our garden.  Little did I realize how this particular plant would be so vigorous and send out so many canes for next year.  Our raised bed wasn’t small, but it wasn’t overly large either.

So in August of last year, I began to read in Extension publications the process of propagating blackberries. Tip-layering was the overall favored method, but in my raised bed, I didn’t want to unsettle my lasagna-layering.  The whole purpose of lasagna-layering is to prevent upsetting the soil and allowing nice earthworms and other microbes to enrich the soil.

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