Now when you've got your blackberry plant, or you are planning to buy one, its time to determine what container, pot or basket size would be the best fit for your blackberry plant.
First of all, you need to know which blackberry variety your are planting.
There are two main groups of blackberry varieties, which will be discussed in seperate page:
-
Trailing and semi-erect blackberries
, which sometimes can also be called as creeping or hanging blackberries, require trellising otherwise they would hang down. So far, we have only one variety available, which has pretty much hanging or creeping growth, that is Black Cascade.-
Erect-caned or upright blackberries
are most common, and they usually don't require any trellis, or in some cases, if they are overloaded with berries, they might require some support or trellising. In this group we can put Purple Opal, Little Black Prince and Baby Cakes.Now, lets go back to the thing you are here for,
planting blackberries in containers, pots and baskets
.The bigger the size of the container, the less you will have to water it, common sense right?
Blackberry plants are usually shipped in small containers or pots, or sometimes in bigger containers, depending on the nursery, also the blackberries in bigger containers are more expensive and will most likely fruit earlier and more abundant, but usually they don't ship them in containers bigger than 5liters (1.1gal UK or 1.32gal US). If you dont need a big blackberry plant for start, and want to spare some money, go for a smaller pot, which are usually around 0.5liters (0.11gal UK or 1.13gal US).
Depending on the vigor of your blackberry plant, you will choose the container size for planting, but even for the first year of growing, I dont recommend planting them in a container with less than 3liters (0.66gal UK or 0.79gal US), as the soil will dry out very quick, and you will probably need to water them every day. In my opinion, a 5liter container, pot or hanging basket would be enough for the first year of planting.
At the end of the growing season in winter, or in early spring before the growth starts, gently pull the blackberry plant out of the container, and examine the root capacity, to determine if it needs re-planting into bigger container.
Here is an example of dwarf creeping blackberry planted in container with capacity of 8liters (1.76gal UK or 2.11gal US), variety Black Cascade, after the first year of growing. It definitely doesnt need any trasplanting into bigger container, and it will probably do just fine in same container for atleast 2 years.
