Bareroot plants are dormant. They are less likely to go into shock when being transplanted.

I think the reason they also make a point to state that is due to various innerstate transit laws. If you ship a plant to CA it is supposed to be bare root only.

Bare root berry plants don't go into appreciable shock and are a much better buy than container plants.

Order your plants from Nourse or Indiana Berry, have them ship in March and you will be harvesting berries in Sept. if you order a primocain variety.

curious, Are there any fruit trees other than pawpaws that dont do well bareroot?

I made two orders from Berries Unlimited. All my cane berries grew out. I'm in Zone 9B though. Feb in NYC is a different animal.

Melikee- thanks for the vote of confidence. I am thoroughly confused by the sheer variety of choices, sizes, and prices.

Just to echo harvestman's point, the bare root everbearing raspberries that I bought from Indiana Berry last spring produced a nice fall crop, and they cost a fraction of what you'll pay for a one gallon plant from Berries Unlimited. Of course, cost isn't the only consideration. I assume, for example, that there's more of a disease risk for field grown bare root transplants than potted tissue culture plants.

shazaam...thanks for confusing me more (jk). i am leaning towards indiana berry for the raspberries and blackberries. I amy go with berries unlimited for blueberries and get a larger plant. did you decide on a bluberry variety? I am leaning towards sunshine or rekka.

Deciding on varieties is always tough, eh? Sunshine and Rekka are definitely on the list of varieties that I plan to add to my small collection of existing plants (3 Duke, 1 O'Neal, and a couple of others that I can't remember off the top of my head). If you're interested in larger plants, Edible Landscaping in Afton, VA has their 3 gallon Rekka plants on sale for $30 + $9.90 shipping.

shazaam- since we are in the same zone, do you have any raspberry or blackberry varieties that you are growing? what about grapes? I am growing (or will be) all in containers except the grape.

Even though we have some zone crossover, I'm a considerable distance south of you and very near the zone 8 boundary. That being said, I'm off to a good start with both Caroline and Autumn Bliss everbearing raspberries. Because of our high summer temperatures, I planted both varieties in a spot with afternoon shade, and they both produced what I considered to be a very good crop in their first year. I also have a spreading patch of Heritage raspberries (also primocane/everbearing) in part shade that do reasonably well. The berries are noticeably smaller than the Caroline and Autumn Bliss berries, though.

As for blackberries, I'm growing Chester (3 or 4 years now) and PrimeJim (a primocane variety). Neither crops very heavily for me, but they're in part shade out of necessity (small yard bordered by wooded lots on two sides). Nonetheless, the berries that they do yield are very tasty.

Finally, I've added an assortment of blackberries, red rasberries and black raspberries last year, but it's too soon to report on them. I haven't tried any grapes yet, but I'm considering adding a muscadine variety or two this spring -- the Ison's variety at Edible Landscaping looks to be right up my alley (tolerant of shade, heat, and humidity and disease/pest resistant).

queens, don't want to confuse you more but wanted to add:

My orders included 4" and 1 gallon cane berries. I found the 4" all caught up with the gallons by the end of the summer. So I would recommend not paying extra for 1 gallon.

I also ordered blueberries from them. They all started to grow but stalled on me. I think my pH was wrong on the containers. Repotted them this winter and now they seem to be budding/flowering nicely. HOWEVER, I remember after buying them seeing a bunch of nice blueberries at Costco, I bought one and it did real well. I couldn't buy more because I had just got my Berries Unlimited order in. If I could go back in time I would get 4" Caneberries from Berries Unlimited and my blueberries from Costco.

This is a unique problem to our society. Sometimes as consumers, we have too many choices and it leads to indecision. Whether you get the berries from Indiana Berry, Berries Unlimited, or Costco you'll do fine. Just get the varieties you want...else your indecision leads to "paralysis by analysis".

I've never heard of anyone having disease issues from plants purchased from a reputable supplier of field grown berry plants. Knowledgeable growers including commercial operations in New England purchase their plants from Nourse much more than any other supplier. I really don't think risk of disease is any factor to consider at all and I wonder where that idea comes from. What diseases are you talking about and what certified supplier has sold diseased material?

It is a pure waste of diesel fuel to ship potting soil with berry plants because they establish so quickly there's really no gain from buying them potted. I have a small commercial nursery and I stopped selling brambles for this reason.

As for my comment about disease risk, I suspect that I combined Florida Hill Nursery's statement that "each plant is lab grown from tissue cultures to be a disease free plant" (I've been perusing their website in recent weeks) and a comment about the possibility of virus infected field grown blueberries that came up in another thread...and out popped that aimless speculation about one possible benefit to buying tissue cultured, potted plants from a supplier like Berries Unlimited. I didn't think it through, don't have any data to back to it up, and shouldn't have written it in the first place.

One situation where you would really want potted is if you are planting during the growing season. Bare root isn't really an option then, but potted plants do fine with a bit of care. I've also had good experiences with plants from Rolling River nursery, which sells all potted plants at very reasonable prices. They are not quite as cheap as bare root, but there isn't too much of a markup, unlike Berries Unlimited which is a bit pricey.

I've gotten blueberries from Berries Unlimited twice and the larger plants were nice, but pretty pricey. If you have time to size them up, blueberries seem to grow pretty quickly. Along with the large plants I got a few in 4" pots late this spring and re-potted them. After by fall, the were roughly equivalent to the 2 gallon plants I was sent. A 1 gallon I was shipped is as large now as the 3 gallon.

Two years ago the bare root raspberries, gooseberries, and currants from Nourse were OK, but nothing special. I got a smaller order this past year and there were some very nice plants- one currant in particular had a monster root system. It probably had as much root mass as 4 plants from the year before. Maybe placing my order earlier in the season this time made a difference.

So far, I've liked Autumn Britain, Caroline, and Prelude (good for early season). I don't really have a leader yet for blackberries- I added 3 more types last year, so I may have a better idea soon.

Shazaam, thank you very much. I've posted plenty of statements without completely thinking them through even though I've learned to be a bit more careful- even when you are wrong the first reaction to being contradicted is annoyance- at least for me. Now I need to learn not to get annoyed when someone posts something that I think is muddying the waters. I tend to be blunt- especially at the end of a hard work day, but you are a very good sport.

By the way, I think purchasing blueberries in potting soil is probably a good way to go. When I grew them in my nursery I always bought them this way from Degrandchamps.

Hman,
I still believe my blueberries arrived infected with phomopsis twig blight, which wiped out the entire planting within three years. I ordered from two popular nurseries, which I will not name. I have another much older planting on another part of the property that has never had an issue--that's why I think diseased nurseries shipments can happen. Maybe it was a fluke--seems like a lot of growers have no problems. But I'm gun shy now and would prefer to try to clone my own healthy plants or the plants of people I know.

Marc

I'm curious, Marc -- were the suspect plants field grown/bare root or pot grown?

Also, quick question for harvestman (if you're still following this thread) -- when you say that potted blueberries are a good way to go, do you see them as having any particular advantages to bare root plants? I've wondered if their fibrous root systems are more (or less) sensitive to handling than those of other fruits. I've had good luck with the few plants that I've bare rooted during repotting, but my experience is limited.

Marc, I don't know what kind of nursery you're talking about but if a company supplied that kind of material to a commercial grower they'd probably be sued out of business or their damaged reputation would create the same outcome.

If it was any more common than something like being killed by a meteorite I reckon Cornell would recommend starting only with greenhouse propagated tissue clones. Rumors often get started because we humans tend to have an excessive belief in the unfounded meaning of coincidence (it is an entirely human response to believe that random events must be connected when they happen to arrive together). Rumors also muddy the waters of useful information and give the internet a bad name as far as being a reliable source of information. If you get a plant from a nursery that is immediately diagnosed as being diseased you have a worthwhile piece of information, in my opinion.

Shazaam, DeGrandchamps is a large commercial supplier and they claim their plants plug in quicker because they ship them in the sand and peat medium they were grown in. I've never seen any research that establishes this, but it makes sense to me.

Hman, well said. I offer no full indictment of the nurseries--just my experience. At the time I had no experience with identifying diseases. In the future I will immediately send plant tissue to Ohio State lab--they do a great job.

Shazaam, the bberries arrived in small containers.