Can you think of a reason my autumn raspberries haven’t fruited? They’ve been healthy-looking plants, but they didn’t flower, which was very disappointing in such a lovely summer when so many other things have done well. I cut them to ground level in February.
Either they are just very late (some varieties of autumn raspberry don’t fruit until the end of October) or they have been wrongly labelled as autumn fruiting and are actually summer sorts instead.
If it’s the latter, they are waiting until next year to flower. Don’t chop them down next February and see what happens. Either you’ll get a huge crop in summer, or you’ll get very early autumn raspberries (you can tell the difference because the autumn raspberries will fruit on new, green growth, whereas the summer ones will fruit on buff-coloured stems).
Another possibility: it’s way too shady and thus they are reluctant to flower, though I doubt they’d look that healthy. It could be that they are just waiting to feel settled before they get to work. However, if they don’t do much next year, I’d show them the compost.
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