Tayberry
Rubus fruticosus × idaeus
Cane fruit for an open sunny spot, with the usual cane troubles and the usual competition from birds.
- Type
- Fruit · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Green
- Flower color
- Purple and violet
- Sunlight
- Full sun
- Feeding
- All-purpose balanced
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- May
- Mar–May Bud Break
- May–Jun Flowering
- Jun–Jul Fruit Set
- Jul–Aug Harvest
- Aug–Oct Growing
- Oct–Dec Leaf Fall
- Jan–Mar Leaf Fall
- Plant spacing
- 8 ft 2 in
- In-row spacing
- 8 ft 2 in
- Between rows
- 6 ft 7 in
- Square-foot density
- Not suited to SFG
- Root system
- A perennial crown that suckers
- Working depth
- 12–24 in
- Can reach
- 3 ft down where the soil allows
- Spread
- 12–21 ft across, about 1.5–2.5× the width of the plant
- Shallowest pot
- 20 in of soil
The canes live two years and the root system does not. It throws new canes from roots wandering well outside the row, which is the plant working exactly as intended and a steady nuisance in a small bed. Slice them off with a spade each spring.
The habit is Tayberry’s own; the figures are what that habit usually comes to at this size, not a measurement of this species. Roots follow the soil either way: a compacted pan, a high water table or heavy clay stops them well short of any of it, and deep open ground lets them go further.
- Raspberry beetle Its grubs feed at the plug end of summer raspberries and blackberries, drying the fruit. Cultivate lightly around canes in winter to expose pupae; autumn varieties largely escape.
- Birds Pigeons strip brassica leaves; other birds take fruit, buds, and seedlings. Netting fixed taut over hoops is the only reliable protection.
- Canker Cane spot
Comfrey, Tansy, Borage
Green-leaved fruit, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com