RASPBERRIES: POLKA, GLEN AMPLE and GLEN DOLL

For a few years now I have been growing the raspberry 'Polka' (the wonder raspberry).  It's a wonderful, thornless, raspberry which, and although it is an autumn variety, Polka can be double cropped by pruning a certain way to get fruit in both summer and autumn.  A little while I posted that I was trying to grow the canes more horizontally (cordon) as they often get taller than the six foot fence and the raspberries at the top end up blow into another neighbourhood.  I have quite a windy garden!  Already the canes are full of leaves bursting out and lots of tiny flower buds. 

Polka raspberry buds 07 April 2014

Polka raspberry, bent down cordon style 07 April 2014

I've become raspberry greedy (I make bircher muesli with raspberries almost every day) and now that I have removed a couple of roses from a border I have room for more canes and more variety too.  I didn't want thorny raspberries; I don't want to be skewered when I want to pick them.  The varieties I have chosen are Glen Ample and Glen Doll, summer fruiting varieties, both quite thornless, and apparently heavy croppers.  As they are only short canes right now, I don't think I'll be seeing much by the way of fruit this year - this gardening malarkey means having to be patient, unfortunately - but next year I hope for bumper crops.  The border is sheltered from northerly winds by a six foot fence and is north facing. 

Glen Ample raspberry, newly planted

Interestingly, other raspberry-expert websites go on about planting the canes with a fertilizer and incorporating compost or manure etc but Polka is planted in a narrow approx. 9 inch border of not particularly rich soil, between a six foot fence and concrete paving.   They face west.  I do ensure the canes receive water and I do give them a liquid feed now and then, but otherwise I have made no fuss over this splendid variety of raspberry and when I planted Glen Doll and Glen Ample, they didn't receive a lot of fuss either.   They do have a wider area to grow (about 20 inch or so from fence to concrete flags) but they've not had any manure or fuss made of them.  We shall see what the result is.



Another thing I would like to mention is that I have seen no sign of aphids on Polka, or any sign of disease.   I hope I don't go and regret mentioning that.  It's like tempting providence.



You might like these other websites below:



Thompson and Morgan - How to grow and prune raspberries very interesting information with two informative videos.



Thompson and Morgan - Polka

Thompson and Morgan - Glen Ample

Fruit Breeding (James Hutton Institute) - Glen Doll and other raspberries