PlantFiles: Purple-Flowering Raspberry
Rubus odoratus

This plant grows very fast and spreads like crazy! One unexpectedly started growing to fill an empty spot in our flower garden and new shoots from underground kept on popping up. I had to prune this plant constantly. This plant is very beautiful though and looks good in our flower garden. The raspberries taste soooo good! We find these things wild all over Vermont.

I have plants growing at my house in NJ. from NC., VT., MA., PA. and NJ. They need plenty of water and do not grow well in pots. A plant I obtained from Tripple Brook Nursery had 126 flowers on a primocane in 3 bunches in July. The plant was 3 years old. It and the NC. plant had decent, but short lived flavor. Most plants have few flowers. I have seen none on 1 year old plants. The NC. plant was taller, later fruiting, and had a rounder fruit. Fruit falls off the day it ripens. Most plants are self-incompatible. If you want to see the fruit, you need 2 or more plants, preferably from different sources.
They do not have thorns but glans. They have a slight sticky feel when touched. The glans cover the buds giving a unique look. The leaves are simple, unlike most rubus species.
I am trying to do some breeding work with this species.

This plant grows wild all over the mountain peaks in the Catskills, where it is a harsh zone 4, considerably colder than above. It grows alongside roadsides at lower altitudes, and offers a spectacular sight. I grow it in deep shade in my garden, zone 4b, 2000 feet below the peaks. It flourishes in my soggy wet clay with no attention, except pruning of anything unruly. It is much prettier than raspberries grown for fruit, and the fruits themselves, while not worth eating, are very decorative. All the plants around here flower a radiant deep pink, sort of crude, but visible from a great distance. It does have thorns, but they are not too vicious.

Grow in full sun and shadow as well. Easy to propagate by divising in spring or fall. Grown in average soil as background for rudbeckia mix in full sun and with hosta & astilbe in shade.
Do flowers in both place, but incrase faster in sun. Do not seem to be invasive.

Fruit is tasteless. This rambling shrub can reach up to 5 ft tall.