Moving raspberry plant

Hi!

(Unrelated to the topic) I wasn't able to find the search function. Did it disapear?

I have a very good patch of raspberry. Unfortunately, I need to dig right where these are next year. I wanted to know some tip to move them. Also, I don't have very much time, I think I would be better with methods that are less likely to success but quicker than something that would take more time. I was thinking about digging the plant and leaving dirt and move to a new location and plant there this fall.

I don't have a precise new place to plant. There's a patch of wild raspberry I could try to replace with. I've already transplanted a few there, a few survived (I didn't put much care on these). There is a lot of rocks in the soil there, I don't know if they'll thrive as much.l though.

Maybe I should go for 2 different spot to have better chance of success?

Hi Jordan,
At least around here, raspberries are pretty hard to kill. Dig up a big enough root ball the plants usually do fine because they have not been "disturbed" the same way as if you dig close and cut the roots. With raspberries specifically, I would move them, and then next year after you have done with the digging, wait until fall and dig up the shoots and transplant them. (Bonus, if you are not growing copyrighted hybrids, you can also dig up these shoots and sell them for some extra money).

Matt

The best time to move them is probably winter when they are dormant and have no leaves. At that time most of them will probably be successful.

I think the previous posters have been spot on with advice. My understanding is that raspberries like a cool root run in summer, but I'm not sure how much winter cold they take. Obviously they will survive with you, but if the ground is poor where you are transplanting them, I suspect a good mulch with organic material - hay, spent compost, fallen leaves, might improve their survival over winter and give them a good start.
If I were moving them I would cut the canes back by 2/3. This does mean you probably won't get much fruit off them next year (unless they are primocane (fruiting on this year's growth), but in my windy area means the roots have a chance to get established without too much wind rock.
I've been transplanting raspberries into my tree field and generally just turning a 2x2 spade of turf over and planting into that gives me 90% survival. My conditions are very different from yours (cool damp summer, zone 9ish winter)

Transplanted Raspberries going feral

These raspberry are cold hardy. I don't know which, but they've been living there for many years without any care and lot of snow falling on it without support.