Love raspberries? Who doesn’t, with their appetizing bright red color and tangy, sweet and distinctive taste? Kids adore popping on straight in their mouth, cooks love what the colorful purée does to desserts, and with vanilla ice cream? Straight to heaven! But oh dear, when it comes to growing your own, there are those nasty thorns to deal with – ouch! And they grow tall, needing special support systems and an area of your garden to grow them – it ends up more like a farm than a garden. Fine if you want it, and we have some great standard raspberries available, but if all that doesn’t appeal, plant the amazing Raspberry Shortcake Raspberry instead. First of all, there are no thorns – so safe picking even for the youngest in your family. Then no staking. The profusion of canes produced are no more than 3 feet tall, arching gently into an attractive mound of leaves and fruit – and easy to pick. You can even grow it in a planter box right on the porch. The bright red fruits are just as large as normal raspberries, and – take our word for it – just as delicious too. Enjoy the unique pleasure of home-grown fruit, fully ripened on the bush, and still warm from the sun. Nothing beats it, so start growing and picking the easiest raspberry in the world.

Growing the Raspberry Shortcake Raspberry

Size and Appearance

The Raspberry Shortcake Raspberry is a deciduous bush that grows as a dense cluster of unbranched stems (canes) growing from the ground. Canes reach a height of 2 to 3 feet, often curving over towards the tip, and a mature plant will be 2 to 3 feet across, gradually expanding as new stems sprout from the ground. The stems are completely free of thorns and bristles, making this plant soft to touch and easy to work around. The leaves are divided into 3 leaflets arranged like a clover leaf, with each leaflet rounded and about 2 inches long. They are mat and deeply crinkled, with toothed edges. The color is a bright and attractive mid-green. New stems grow each year from the ground over summer, and these canes then flower the following year.

Flowers grow on short side branches, mostly towards the top of the canes, and these are in clusters of 2 to 5 flowers, each one an open white cup of 5 petals with a yellow center – simple but charming. Flowers usually open in May, varying with your location. This fruit is self-pollinating, and produces a full crop without any other raspberries in the area. Fruits develop quickly, first pale green, then turning almost white, and finally ripening to a warm, deep red color. The first berries should ripen by late June in most areas, and continue to ripen throughout July. The bush may be small, but the berries are full-size, sweet and full of that classic raspberry flavor. Enjoy them fresh, in fruit salads, as purée, or baked into muffins, cakes, and desserts of all kinds.

Using the Raspberry Shortcake Raspberry in Your Garden

Because it needs no staking or support, and is compact, you can grow the Raspberry Shortcake Raspberry bush right among your flowers – it will look great. From zone 6 it can be grown in pots and planters too, which will stand outside all winter. In colder zones, containers will need to be protected from sever cold in winter.

Hardiness

This plant is hardy in zone 4, and it can be grown all the way into zone 9 and possibly even cooler parts of zone 10, because it has low chill requirements and
needs just a few colder nights in winter to mature its flower buds.

Sun Exposure and Soil Conditions

Full sun is best for your Raspberry Shortcake Raspberry bushes, but they will take a couple of hours of shade each day easily, especially in the heat of summer. It prefers rich, moist but well-drained soil, but it will grow in most garden soils. Shallow soils and strongly alkaline soils are not so suitable.

Maintenance and Pruning

Water regularly from the time buds begin to swell until the harvest is over, and don’t let your bush become too dry in summer. Each year, remove at the ground canes that have carried fruit, to make room for the new canes. If there are not many new canes developing, you can also cut the older canes in half and get a crop from them the next year – remove them completely after that. Pests and diseases are rare, and this variety is resistant to some of the virus diseases that can affect raspberry bushes.

History and Origin of the Raspberry Shortcake Raspberry

The Raspberry Shortcake Raspberry was created in a breeding program in New Zealand in the 1990s. Harvey Hall and Joseph Stephens, with the New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research at Nelson, crossed other seedlings they had developed, and in 2001 they selected a special seedling they named ‘NR7’. It was patented in 2011 in America to benefit the Institute. IN 2014 the Conard-Pyle Corporation of Pennsylvania registered the trademark name Raspberry Shortcake for it. They released it initially as part of their Bushel and Berry® range of fruit bushes specially created for home growers.

Buying the Raspberry Shortcake Raspberry at the Tree Center

Finally – no thorns and no wires running across your garden. Just compact, attractive bushes smothered in full-sized delicious summer raspberries. Nothing could be better, and you’ll know that when you eat those first home-grown berries. Order your plants of the Raspberry Shortcake Raspberry right away – it’s a popular variety that is always in short supply.