Trying to fix mistakes with Triple Crown blackberry bushes

I've dropped the ball on our 4 Triple Crown blackberry bushes. I let them do their thing from summer - to this spring and now they've gone everywhere. I'm not an expert and appreciate anyone who can tell me what can be done to tame this and get me started on the right track.

You can see on the images that they've all grown downward and rooted into the ground at the end of every stem. I've attached a few images to show you what they look like. I planted them last year, but they were a couple years old when planted. Should I:

- Keep each of these rooted extensions or dig them up and re-bury them closer to where the original plant was established?
- Cut them off and try to regrow from the original plant?
- Or even cut off the branch and dig them up to regrow as new shoots?
- Or something else entirely?







Thanks for the help and feedback!
- John

Hi John,

  Easy fix here. Blackberries regrow from the original crown each year with new canes and fruit from existing ones, so you can just prune the original plant back to a convenient size and either leave, or dig and relocate all rooted sections to a more convenient location. They are all new plants.
 Housewarming presents?

J W Richardson wrote:Hi John,

  Easy fix here. Blackberries regrow from the original crown each year with new canes and fruit from existing ones, so you can just prune the original plant back to a convenient size and either leave, or dig and relocate all rooted sections to a more convenient location. They are all new plants.
 Housewarming presents?

Thanks for the feedback! Didn't think it would be an easy fix. So when cutting these back (because they are like large archways) should I leave the roots and maybe a foot of the cane for the new plants? Also, that bring up the dead cane from the previous year - Should I just cut that off completely down to the soil as it wont regrow?

Sorry I'm incredibly new to this and trying to gather as much knowledge as I can before I kill these things

- John

Usually those rooted canes are still alive, so you f you cut it off around a foot or two from the new roots, the other end should be coming out of the original crown, so you can trim it back to the length you want and it shoudl fruit this year.
 I am pretty sure that the rooted cane shoudl still be alive. You can check on which canes have died by scratching some bark off with your thumbnail. If you see green, leave it to fruit. The crown itself should have some spent canes that you can trim to the ground, they will be brown with the thumbnail test.

Duh, look at the photo. You canes are definitely alive.

Duh, look at the photo. You canes are definitely alive.
( The duh is addressed to me btw.)

Last year's canes produce this year's berries.  Leave them if you want a harvest.

J W Richardson wrote:Usually those rooted canes are still alive, so you f you cut it off around a foot or two from the new roots, the other end should be coming out of the original crown, so you can trim it back to the length you want and it shoudl fruit this year.
 I am pretty sure that the rooted cane shoudl still be alive. You can check on which canes have died by scratching some bark off with your thumbnail. If you see green, leave it to fruit. The crown itself should have some spent canes that you can trim to the ground, they will be brown with the thumbnail test.

Thanks for all the wonderful advice. I feel like I might now know enough to keep these things alive another summer. I guess the big question is what's the best trellis system I can use to keep these canes under some kind of control. Obviously they just grow every which way in large arches, so I need to use a system to keep them up and off the ground somewhat. Does anyone have any links/videos that might be helpful to create one of these with 4 (or now more once I plant the new canes) bushes?

Again, thanks so much for all the help!
- John

I left mine intact on both ends. Makes a strong arch that hopefully hold up a lot of berries. They'd get too crowded eventually, but it seems like it should work good for one year. I'll cut the new plants off and give away or transplant this fall. I haven't done it this way before.

I purposefully bury the ends of canes in buckets of soil.
Free plans, already potted up!
Before that I just put brick over the ends.
Both ways rooted.
As you prune the canes, you can dip any  live lengths into rooting compound, and shove them in a bucket of moist potting soil. Cover with an opaque trash bag to preserve humidity and keep out light, thus encouraging root growth. Store in the shade.
I can't keep track of the age of each cane, so when I get around to pruning, I just cut the crunchy juice less ones.