How to Prune Blackberry Bushes & Raspberry Bushes Correctly

I just finished pruning grape vines, and now it's time to prune my thorned and thornless blackberries and raspberries so they don’t get overgrown. But, I assume you’ve clicked on this blog not because you are growing grapes, but because you are growing blackberries or growing raspberries and want to know what to do next.

You’re in the right place! The first thing you should know is that there is a difference in proper pruning techniques depending on whether you have primocane or floricane berry bushes.

I will walk you through how to identify which type you have, the key differences between the two, the best season to prune (fall, winter, or spring), and how to prune blackberry bushes and raspberry bushes the right way.

Taming the Bramble Bush

Blackberries and raspberries can easily become a prickly thicket of canes, but there is no need for your bushes to have the tangled brambles of their wild counterparts. As with many garden plants, proper pruning is key!

Just as with pruning fruit trees and pruning tomatoes, proper hands-on maintenance improves airflow and dries out the foliage, preventing disease and allowing more sunlight to reach the fruit. It also improves yields, removes unproductive, diseased or damaged parts, and makes the berry patch easier for you to manage in the future.

Primocane Vs Floricane Type

Although the same pruning techniques apply to raspberries and blackberries, and the information is interchangeable, don’t even pull your bypass pruners or loppers out until you know if you have primocane or floricane bushes! That information may have been on the plant tag when you bought it, but you may not have remembered, or you may not have planted them.  

You can do a simple Google search for the variety or cultivar you have, and it will tell you whether you’ve got a primocane or a floricane. I think the easiest and most surefire way to tell is to just let them go and observe them for a year. Yes, I’m giving you permission to skip pruning this year.

If your berry bush grows and grows but only produces one flush of fruit per year, you have primocane. If your plant is growing and producing fruit in the summer and then you get another flush of fruit in the late summer to early fall, you have a floricane.

Once you know whether you have primocanes or floricanes, that dictates how you prune them.

When to Prune

Prune blackberries and raspberries every year when the plant is dormant in late winter to early spring.

Regardless of the type of bush, many people prefer to skip pruning and leave older growth because they end up with large bushes with a lot of foliage. It seems like those large bushes would produce large yields. 

Instead, these unmanaged bushes become completely overgrown and yield relatively little. That is because so much of the plant’s energy is diverted to parts of the plant that will never produce fruit again.

How to Prune Blackberry Bushes & Raspberry Bushes

Primocane

A primocane needs to be pruned completely each year. That means all the growth should be cut back to about 10-12” off the ground. This causes the plant to send up a bunch of new growth that will fruit. 

Floricane

For floricane varieties, remove only the canes that have already fruited by cutting them off near the ground. These older canes will not fruit again. You should leave the young, new canes to produce fruit in the coming season. This encourages the plant to focus its energy on the new canes that will fruit instead of growth on canes that will never fruit again. 

I like to leave the young canes completely intact, but if they are too long you can tie them up or clip them back a little. Pruning the tops is not recommended but you can do it if you want.

Growing Fruit

I'm all for growing our own fruit at home! Besides the potential for low-cost, fresh, organic fruit for years to come, I like the security of knowing we are not completely dependent on commercial markets with fluctuating prices for our food.

If you would like to increase your self-sufficiency, MIgardener is here to help! You can purchase high-quality dormant plants and learn how to grow more varieties of fruiting perennials right here:

• How to Grow Gooseberries & Currants

• How to Grow Grapes

• A Guide For Growing Elderberry

• How to Plant Strawberries

• How to Grow Blueberries

• Planting Fruit Trees to Grow A Productive & Healthy Orchard

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