Yes, one edible plant that works at my cottage. But production is low. They can tolerate full sun, Clark’s area can be very hot. Penn state suggests full sun to part shade.
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I find them very thorny and rambling. I’ve gotten very little fruit off mine, but I seem to get poked by these more than almost anything else…lol
Though the thorns aren’t nearly as scary as those on the Che, the poncirus or the seaberries…
Scott
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The idea of growing red raspberries is already making my mouth water! I will give a couple to a friend and plant the others in various different locations throughout the property. My friend has grade A farm ground with plenty of water and rich river bottom ground. Feeling good about these. Not very likely these will be invasive in Kansas.
My Wineberries are starting to green up and soon we will know how well they acclimate to Kansas. Oikos sent out nice looking big plants. Wineberries don’t seem to have a great deal of roots in comparison to the blackberries I planted this year.
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In my experience ripping then out of ornamental beds at work, wineberries are pretty shallow and light on roots. Mostly rhizome and some feeder roots. You’ll probably want to mulch them heavily in your climate.
Funny how I often have to treat them as a weed and you are trying to cultivate them!
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Kelby,
There are some real challenges growing just about any fruit in Kansas but I’m hopeful your weeds will be a real treasure here. Most invasive or unwanted trees in other climates are what we need to grow here as a main crop.
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Clark,
I’m warning you. Japanese wineberries are devilishly invasive. They taste fairly good, but production is on the low side unless you want to dedicate a ton of space to them. They can eventually develop thick root colonies and can become almost impossible to get rid of. The birds scatter the seeds everywhere too. Most disturbingly, they have insidious prickers which can penetrate canvas garden gloves like cactus needles. They have taken over the mountains here. They grow at the edge of forests right next to the poison ivy and porcelainberry vines.
I rip their roots out with the grip of my loppers and yank out the rhizomes, tearing up my clay soil all over the place.
I’d advise you to rip 'em out; put them belly up on a rock to let the roots die a gruesome death; and run away in the opposite direction.
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I’m just remembering now that you have an impenetrable wall of spiked blackberries so… I guess thorny and unwieldy aren’t dealbreakers for you.
If it means anything to you, they (wineberries) are non-native.
The blackberries however are native.
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Funny to think of these as something one would want to plant! They are tasty, but super invasive here. One local burger shop did have a wineberry milkshake in season (mid/late June to early July here) which I thought was clever. What I’ve heard is that they crowd out the native berries although I’m not sure which those are. Maybe black raspberries? Those are also delicious and way harder to find. I associate a purple/red cane with these, not green as I saw pictured up the thread. Aaaah they are ripe right around our sweet youngest daughter’s bday so I have fond memories of picking them along the road right before she was born. 
She’s had a couple of wineberry cakes:) (yellow cake w buttercream made w strained, cooked down wineberries)
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I plan to plant all of my rubus into 10 gallon grow bags planted in the ground
Matt,
Kansas has not been overly kind to them so far. I’m hopeful I can keep them alive long enough for them to get good at growing here.
Why use growbags when they can just be planted in-ground without any fuss? The roots of rubus plants need to spread around or they won’t thrive as readily (though they can still escape via tip-roots).
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my theory is they will have plenty room to spread in the bag and I can control suckers better. Also if It doesn’t work out I can always remove the bags later.
This is what roots grown in the non woven fabric bags are supposed to look like compared with plastic.
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I have a plant and it seems to only spread by tip rooting. Appears to have a crown, but it’s 35 miles away from me at the moment, so cannot examine it. It’s 3rd leaf and only appears to try and tip root. I cut the canes down so they are not touching the ground.
Not much grows at my cottage, it takes 6 years there for a fruit tree to produce. Conditions are harsh. Wineberry is one of few that works there.
I’m a fan of fabric, but only use above ground. I would rather plant in ground, I just ran out of ground to plant in.
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Wineberries are working very good so far in the areas I put them in. Marshy, shaded, or clay soil areas that grew little else. The wineberries so far appear to be getting established. I’m looking forward to red raspberries!
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Good luck with them! My plant is looking good this year. I was just at my cottage yesterday. Netting my cherry tree, and few other chores.
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Worried they won’t grow? They will strangle you when you fall asleep like Jack’s Beanstalk.
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Oh, they’re not that bad. Now Himalayan Blackberry…that stuff is nasty.
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Matt,
I was worried they might not grow! They do look promising! They are in a fairly wild location and need to fend for themselves most of the time.
They will devour the souls of the other plants around them.
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