Their roots go deep and their thick, wickedly-barbed tentacles stretch up as high as 9 feet! They tower over the tallest native Salmonberry and Thimbleberry bushes and use their height and girth to starve smaller plants like Oak saplings and the native trailing blackberry of desperately-needed sunlight.

Although the Himalayan blackberry is often a nuisance when it’s growing where it’s not wanted, it’s a popular plant with many people. The ripe blackberries are sweet, juicy, and delicious.

The fruit is yellow, edible and highly sought after. Where it becomes established, yellow Himalayan raspberry forms impenetrable thickets, threatening native lowland wet forests and displacing native Hawaiian plant species, including a native Hawaiian raspberry (Rubus hawaiiensis).

Himalayan blackberry is considered a Class C Invasive. It will grow over, and kill, anything in it’s path. It’s stems have nasty thorns that will cut your hands and prickles that leave little black remnants in your fingers that will fester and cause discomfort long after you’ve made contact with the source.

Invasive species Because it is so hard to contain, it quickly gets out of control, with birds and other animals eating the fruit and then spreading the seeds. It is especially established West of the Cascades in the American Pacific Northwest.

The five petals of the Himalayan blackberry are generally fuller and wider than the Pacific blackberry, and the thorns are more abundant on the non-native. Drooping canes can root at the nodes when they touch the ground, making a nearly impenetrable wall of tangled thorns when grown out.

Disappointingly, the Himalayan blackberry is not from the Himalayas. It originated in Armenia and was introduced to Europe in 1835 for people to cultivate as a crop on purpose, if you can believe that. Like a gremlin doused with water, it escaped its confinement and rampantly spread throughout the continent.

Description, Habitat, Ecology, & Distribution: This is the only native blackberry species in British Columbia. It is a low, trailing plant with deciduous leaves and white to pink flowers that produce the small blackberry fruits.

eastern North America

Where To Pick Blackberries in Victoria

• the Galloping Goose (throughout Victoria)
• Tod Inlet (Saanich)
• Elk & Beaver Lake (Saanich)
• Quick’s Bottom (Saanich)
• Around Gorge-Burnside Community Center (Saanich)
• Seabluff Farm (Metchosin)
• Macaulay Point (Esquimalt)
• Local parks.

Trailing blackberry is a native perennial, low trailing shrub. Its trailing or climbing stem is armed with tiny, slender, hooked spines. This species produces male and female flowers borne on separate plants that are white or pink with elongated petals.

Stark Bro’s Berry Plants – Years Until Fruit*

Erect blackberries grow upright, meaning that they need a less elaborate pruning and trellising system than trailing blackberries do. Like trailing blackberries, erect cultivars produce new canes each year, with only the second-year branches bearing fruit.

The members of the Solanum (nightshade) genus have thorns and are reported to cause injuries that are slow to heal due to poisonous thorns. Blackberry branches have thorns that can cause puncture wounds for gardeners. And those wounds can allow infections from pathogens in the soil.

Blackberries are often considered one of the easiest fruits to grow at home. They are a native species to the United States and grow as a small shrub or trailing vine.

Trailing blackberries require a trellis system to support the fruiting canes. Erect blackberries grow without support, but trellises will keep the planting neater and make harvest easier. The trellis should be installed at planting time.

of water per week during the growing season and up to 4 inches (10 cm.) per week during harvest season. Keep in mind that blackberry plants are shallow rooted so the root system isn’t diving down into the soil for moisture; it all needs to be at the surface.

3 to 4 feet tall