Description
Triple Crown Blackberry Patch Starter Collection
This collection contains 4 individually potted, quart size, Triple Crown Blackberry plants. Triple Crown has been the most reliable floricane producing blackberry on our farm, which is in a chilly valley that often experiences late frosts and freezes. The last blackberry to bloom in the late Spring, it is also brings in a full harvest of fruit starting in late July/August into early September in heavy years with good rainfall. Triple Crown is also the highest yielding blackberry I’ve ever grown, yielding over 25# of berries on a single large plant (it did take up a 12′ by 4′ area, and years ago when I sold the plants at our farmers market they were know as “fruit monsters”). Triple Crown is a trailing cultivar, so it will not be uncommon to see a 5-6 year old plant send out canes that can get to 20′ long. Modest pruning in the early to mid summer can contain these riotous growers to a more manageable size if you like. See our plant care guide for pruning tips on blackberries. They are also good at semi-naturalizing a back fence if you prefer. Deer will graze them, but I only protect them when young. Once they’ve been in the ground a few years, the deer actually do me a favor by keeping the edges trimmed up. The deer do not eat the berries, though; just the leaves.
I am often asked about trellising blackberries. I am not a fan of trellises, to be honest. Anything that adds upkeep to my berry patch I tend to shy away from. If you want to maximize your yield, trellising will absolutely help with that. But if you’d like a semi-wild patch, Triple Crown will also delight you as a minimal work blackberry plant.
While Triple Crown is a trailing cultivar, it does have arching branches. Keeping them cut to 5-7′ tall/long will make for sturdy, thick canes that do not bow under the weight of fruit that much. Some canes when I prune them out after harvest have been 3″ or more in diameter on our older plants. That’s a sturdy size.
All plants in this collection are 1-1.5 year old field divisions. They are quart size, potted plants (not bare root). They range in height from 12″ to 20″ . Planting guide is on this website.
For USDA Growing Zones 5 to 10a
Free Shipping in contiguous US only
