My Triple Crown here in middle Georgia started leafing out just in the last couple of days, so give your vines a little bit longer. My thornless blackberries (I also have Apache and Arapaho) don't start blooming until the end of April into the first part of May. You can also give the vines the scratch test. Just give a little scratch on one of the vines to see if the cambium layer under the 'bark' is still green. Green is good and brown is bad. Good luck.

Russell Ayres

I am in Houston, Tx and grew triple crown for three years and the plants never fruited or flowered. They grew like crazy and were very healthy, but no fruit. I subsequently pulled them up. Have heard they need a much higher chill than we receive. I live on north side and get @500-600 hrs, but evidently that was not enough. I tasted the fruit in a nursery and it is my favorite. Much prefer it to the Arkansas varieties that I now grow. Currently growing chickasaw, arapaho, and ouachita. You may have gotten fruit the first year due to the chill hours received in the growing nursery.

I'm a little surprised you're not getting any leaves yet...you should be getting leaves even if you aren't getting flowers by now. However, what kindwood says about chill hours is correct, and you might not get quite enough for Triple Crown to produce reliably, as it needs more in the 800-1000 hour range.

I do wonder what you mean, though, by "wound" the canes on a trellis. Did you actually try to bed the canes? Triple Crown, while not totally erect, does have pretty stout, thick canes, and if you tried to bend them, you might have done some pretty severe damage to them.

Thanks for replies. We have not had 800 chilling hours here.(Just north of San Antonio). I built a trellis, stringing wire between three posts, and carefully helped the canes unto the wires. Didn't break them, and they are very healthy looking.

I don't know if will be as true further east of us as your soil is a little different, but I grew up with blackberries and grow/have grown several varieties. The only rule of thumb I can tell you for SURE is that if it doesn't have thorns, you're more than likely wasting your time in Texas. The thorny varieties are that much more productive here.

The best performing black berries for the gulf-coast/Houston Area are Kiowa, Brazos, and Roseborough. The latter two are basically the same plant, Brazos is more tart (better for pies/preserves) and Roseborough is more sweet. Kiowa is a relative new-comer, but WOW! I get huge canes and tons of berries the size of Ping-Pong balls excellent flavor all around.

Check out Urban Harvest and see if they can refer you to an expert in your area.

Here is a link that might be useful: Urban Harvest

Hello, I purchased a blackberry bush for my father around 5 years ago and he has a similar problem to start with, it didn't produce or bloom. My aunt suggested he use an acidic fertilizer, once he did this he got tonnes of blooms and berries. You can use aluminum sulfate (which you should read the box and be careful with) or a rhododendoron fertilizer. I hope this helps...

Hi:
I found your website yesterday and read through it all.
I am having problems with the triple crown
Three years ago planted triple crown. Last summer I lost three of them. They were looking good and then just wilted and died.

I did not pay too much attention since I have Arapaho - Ohhhh what a great berry - let me sing it's praises. Wait
back on track.

This year the triple crowns that remained looked great Lots of berries and then now that the berries are just about to get ripe - it don't look right! There are very - very few leaves- I can't imagine these berries will continue to be plump up and make nice berries.

The new growth is good though.

But if this is how it is going to act I am thinking of either digging it up and throwing away the three I have. Or maybe I will dig them up this fall and put them far away from me like down in the lower field, and let nature takes it course.

What is wrong do you think?

Is the Triple Crown thornless blackberry plant grown on grafted roots? I have some plants that seem to have grown in the garden from seeds from the fruit the birds have dropped while feeding on the blackberry patch I planted. Will these seedlings produce berries likes the original or will they be some kind of wild cross that I should pull up?

No blackberries are grafted that I know of. TC and any other will clone true from tip rooting or division. However, bird-planted seeds will not be true to type--they will even possibly be thorny. That's what happens with my thornless boysenberries.

Sometimes I think the nuisance of fruit lost to birds is less than that of the nuisance of the "wild" berries they sow. If you don't get them completely out with all the roots they are very difficult to eliminate.

steve: Thanks for the advice... I will PULL OUT any growing from seed in the garden then! (& boy! do they have strong roots already!). Guess the seeds will not grow true either? A friend wants some so I am layering a cane in the ground to try & get one started for the neighbor.

When cutting to the ground the canes that have produced fruit this year, will that cane then come up again to produce another year? Once the fruit is gone, how do you determine later which cane had the berries on? I guess I can cut the cane right away.. but there are other clusters forming berries on the same cane. Later how do you tell which cane produced this year .. are there tell-tale signs on the cane later on during the year? I did notice that some of the canes I tied up on wires didn't produce any berries this year so I now realize they must have been the fruiting ones last year & I need not even attempt to leave those canes & tie them up after bearing... cut them to the ground !! I am so uninformed about growing the Triple Crown or even raspberry varieties that only produce on current years new canes so appologize for the maybe strange ?'s! Oh, the TC berries are SO good! Someone mentioned not picking the new glossy black berries... if you wait a day or so they will get a little dull/less glossy looking & that is when they are the sweetest? It seems to be true... IF the birds will wait that long!!

As vigorous as this one labeled cane that came as a 'freebie' with an order some years ago has spread from the roots, I can see how it could take over a whole area in no time!

We are zone 7 & get freezing temps. most every winters but dry,hot summers at mile high altitude & many grapes (mostly for wine making) & raspberries grown in the area.

Blackberry seedlings are best pulled when a few inches high--they look exactly like miniature versions of the mature plants.

You lost me with all the cane talk. If read literally, sounds like you cut down next year's fruiting canes, the ones that had no fruit this year. Or was there three year's worth of canes in the patch, the fruiting canes from last year having never been pruned out?

The canes to cut down after harvest are very obvious: The ones with fruiting stems left over from where the berries were picked. Just trace those laterals back to the main cane or the main cane back to the ground. Once pruned below the first leaf node, it will not grow back.

Might be too early in the season to get a layered cane to root; this is best done by waiting for growth to stop in late season and pin or weight just the cane tip to soil. At this time the cane tips stop producing leaves and grow little rootlets, almost claw-like.

I am sorry I am so confusing!! I guess I never really understood the pruning process: I thought once the fruiting cane was cut off to the ground, the part below where the cane was cut off would come back up the next year new from the ground & bear again... I now think (!) I understand that once that bearing cane was cut off at the ground it would not re-grow again but new fruit bearing shoots would come up from the main roots again? What happens in the wild then to the canes that have already bore fruit ... do they eventually die? I can see the now barren canes from ? last year do look different.. tougher, thicker, more yellow... CUT them to the ground?!

One nursery said 'the blackberry was not grafted so the seed that grows should grow the same as the parent planted' ... that is not true is it? Yes, I try to pull those look-alike blackberry seedlings right away... they put down sizable roots quickly! I have had some success in layering the blackberry & figs for others who want them.

Thanks everyone for your patience!!

Pruning out the post-harvest canes has nothing to do with the newer canes that will fruit next year and that already sprouted and grew this spring and summer, right along with your fruiting canes.

Yes, the older wild canes eventually die.

Don't cut any cane that has no evidence of having fruited.

Your seeds will grow fine blackberry plants, but they may be thorny, wimpy, and have smaller and less flavorful fruit.

The plants that pop up around my plants are root sprouts from original plants and same cultivar as main plant when dig one up look for root plant sprouted from blackberries send out long shallow roots in soft ground. Root from main plant be larger than exploding new roots less 12 foot from main plant be baby plant from main plant if don't want them mow off several times they stop growth. A new has to come from cross pollination blackberries are self pollination seed be same as mother plant and infertile to germinate.
A Triple Crown,needs to be in 7B to even set small fruit set they work best in zone 6B, 7A South 7B almost no fruit.
On any blackberry plant in South they need to be very vegetative before winter good growth well into October the 20th good date.

Thank you larry gene .. .& everyone; think I just may understand it now!!

I've had my triple crown for 2 years ...flowers but no fruit. I bought my plant from home depot in a 6 inch pot. Seems like it would have fruited by now...

Odd that there are flowers but no fruit sets? Come answer this earlier posters?!

This is probably a long shot but some of my cane that have been infested with borers died or leafed out slowly. Just a long shot. Check for swollen areas of the cane about 1' from soil line.

laccanvas don't want ask but still in 6 inch pot, blackberry plants need to be in ground in full sun then flower set fruit..

I planted 12 triple crown blackberry bushes last spring. They are unbelievable
They are blackberries on steroids! We up a wire fence for them this spring. Started getting getting berries about mid July. A couple of the bushes were still blooming last week and I was getting berries off them too. The berries have been really large and sweet. Very happy with the Triple Crown Blackberry.

I have been picking a bowl of the Triple Crown Blackberries almost every day now & canes still loaded with the red young ones. I do let the berries turn shiny black & then wait a couple days tiIl the black dulls a bit & as one poster suggested, they are sweeter then. The berries are huge! I must say the problem is keeping the canes from coming up all over the garden & cutting/pulling them up where they don't belong. Also, they must also grow from seed that birds must drop as I have 'babies' coming up all over too... guess they wouldn't grow true to the parent though, coming from seed? I yank these up & toss them, I dig the canes that have come up from the parent & give away to others. Am ashamed, as I still do not have this years fruiting canes & next years cane to fruit quite separated yet as to which is what?!

Planted 5 Triple Crown bare root plants in early May (here in southeast Michigan). They all are growing very nicely...but are very low to the ground (& I was expecting more vertical growth). Just wondering what I should do this first year to help ensure future growth and berry production.

Do I just let these canes grow as long across the ground as they want to or should I trim/pinch them?

Should I cover them in the fall with stray or something.....or cut em back down to a certain length?

Any feedback appreciated....as I'm a first time grower.

Many thanks!

i'm so confused about the blackberry bushes pruning talk, what would happen to my 3 triple crown thornless blackberry bushes planted this year in April 2022 if I don't prune them ever?

Thank you so much for your response.

I'm posting 2 pictures of my TC blackberry bushes, I bough 2 of them in local nursery in late April, they had some flowers on them, eventually a lot of berries came, but they are gradually drying up. I don't know if this is the bushes' first year, most likely yes because they were about only one foot tall. I thought TC blackberry only fruit on 2nd year.

Should I cut them to the ground now? there are berries on all branches. Thanks.

Your nursery-bought TC plants were multiple years old. That is why they have flowers and fruit.

The one-foot tall probably mean they were already heavily pruned, perhaps to keep the plants to an easy size for sale.

I don't see any evidence in the photos of new, non-fruiting canes. So I would not prune off all the greenery until this fall. Next spring, some new canes should sprout up, and the year after, you can begin the procedures of my earlier post.

These plants, with proper summer water, will become more vigorous in coming years. Keep grass pulled out to about one foot away from the base.

Thanks. Now this doesn't seem too confusing anymore.

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Hi everyone! This thread has me a bit confused. For I planted 10 Triple Crown in back in 2020 - or at least that is what I ordered. I am in Pearland, which is about 10 miles south of Houston, so not many chill hours at all. But I get a TON of berries each year, and they are extremely vigorous. As of today, 4/25/24, a few of their berries are JUST starting to turn black, but most are still red or green.

Is it possible for someeone to confirm that they look like Triple Crown? That people are having trouble getting berries off them in Houston is weird when they produce so many for me. Here are some pics:

And a close up of a stem and some berries - I bagged the one that is starting to turn red/black because every year the birds (and squirels? probably the birds only) have been robbing me of 95% of the berries):

Thanks!

Cannot positively ID as Triple Crown (TC) from your pictures. The one thing your berries have in common with TC is their irregular, lumpy shape. Most blackberries are globe- or cylinder-shaped.

I suspect the growth habit of TC here in western Oregon is entirely different.

Thank you Logician! If I took a few more pics, might that help? I mean, it SHOULD be TC. But then I have some others that looks slightly different, possibly you might see whether those (might be) TC or likely something different if I post some pics of those as well? I really appreciate it!

More pictures will not help; the lumpy shape of the black-phase TC fruit is quite distinctive, especially if more ripen to that shape. Note that TC berries are not fully ripe until they lose a bit of their gloss and come off the stem with almost no effort. If you have to yank, they are not ripe.

Birds will begin pecking at the start of the black phase.

Thank you Logician! They are all lumpy like that. And yes, you are 100% absolutely correct - they are not sweet if you pick them when they are "shiney", you have to wait until they look more dull after that. And I fight the birds every year, they are ruthless. :(

Thanks!!!