Raspberries in a container - Which plants are suitable for a guild?

Hi all,

i want to plant some raspberries in containers on my balcony to grow them for cuttings,
not for berries.
They come in 1-2 Litre pots, and i want to transplant them into deep containers 7 to 30 litres.

It seems wrong to me to put them into the containers all alone, i think at least some N-Fixers should be added.
I would prefer some perenniel like Elaeagnus spp., Alnus spp. or Hippophae rhamnoides.
However i am not sure whether root competition would be to severe, even if i rigorously trim
them back. Maybe some legumes would be better?

Maybe even some Strawberries as ground cover or some flowers to deter pests?

So today my N-Fixers arrived:
Elaeagnus  commutata, e. angustifolia and Hippophae rhamnoides "Sirola".
As far as i know, all of these have and extensive and very competitive root system.


I think for the first 30L Container i will try a evergreen blackberry and Hippophae rhamnoides "Sirola".

For the smaller 12L Containers i will try clover. It should provide ground cover and fix nitrogen.

Any comments and recommendations are still welcome.

Raspberries are very easy to propagate by digging up their suckers.  So in a pot I'm assuming they would send suckers to the edge of the pot and then they'd surface and start to grow.  Just wait a bit and then dig out that part (separating the sucker underground from the rest of the plant).  Pot it up and you have a new plant.  I'd hazard a guess that one raspberry in a decent sized pot should make 4 or more babies each year.

I hadn't heard of doing cuttings with them but if that works, you could get more from one cane.  If it works...

I don't have much input regarding the guild aspect.  If you aren't digging up the suckers, maybe it doesn't matter.  If you are, maybe the guild plants would get grumpy?  

Garlic, Tanacetum vulgare and Ruta graveolens are the companions but I am not sure about the guilds.

Gurkan Yeniceri wrote:Garlic, Tanacetum vulgare and Ruta graveolens are the companions but I am not sure about the guilds.

Ok, putting garlic in should be no problem, but Tanacetum and Ruta seem to be a bit difficult to handle in terms
that they can burn your skin/cause allergic reactions. On top the Tanacetum is a neophyte here, so one more reason to avoid it.


i found another thread with some interesting information:
https://permies.com/t/3702/berry/raspberries

Paul Gutches wrote:Coupled with the note that nettles make a great companion to raspberries, and that raspberries tend to have shallow roots, it almost seems safe to say that raspberries are not fond of excess nitrogen.

Figuring... the chips will draw much of the shallow nitrogen down, and nettles are fairly heavy consumers of it.

paul wheaton wrote: Sawdust is best for raspberry. And it is the only plant where sawdust is best.

So it seems that a N-Fixer may not be the right companion for a raspberry?

What do you think, should i pull out the clover again and only use sawdust as ground cover?