Japanese wineberry

About

Wineberry canes are covered from base to tip in fine red bristles that catch low winter sun and light the whole plant up. Gardeners who grow it for fruit often admit the winter stems were the reason they kept it.

The fruit habit is unusual. Each berry develops inside a closed calyx covered in the same sticky red hairs, and stays sealed until it ripens. The calyx then peels back and presents a glossy orange-red berry, which is a good deal more elegant than a raspberry announcing itself green.

Flavour sits between a raspberry and a redcurrant, sweet with a clean sharp edge, and the berries are smaller and juicier than a raspberry.

It crops in late July and August, filling the gap after summer raspberries finish and before blackberries start. That timing is a large part of its value.

Appearance and character

A cane fruit with the biennial habit of a raspberry. Canes grow one year, fruit the next, and then die.

The canes are the plant’s signature, arching to 3 m and clothed in dense soft red glandular bristles rather than hard prickles. They are unpleasant to grip but do not tear skin the way a blackberry does.

Leaves are in threes, the end leaflet much the largest, dark green above and strikingly white-felted underneath.

Flowers are small and pinkish in July, held in clusters, mostly hidden inside the bristly calyces.

Fruit is 1 cm across, orange-red, glossy and hollow when picked, sitting free of the receptacle as a raspberry does.

Where it is from

Rubus phoenicolasius is native to Japan, Korea and northern China, growing on woodland edge and in scrub.

It reached Europe and North America in the 1890s, brought in as an ornamental and as breeding stock for raspberry improvement.

In the eastern United States that introduction went badly. The plant escaped into woodland edge and floodplain, where tip-rooting canes and bird-sown seed let it form dense stands, and several states now list it as invasive.

Europe has seen nothing on that scale. It naturalises occasionally in the milder parts, and the tip-rooting habit is a garden management issue rather than a countryside one.

The species name means bloody hair, which describes the red bristles exactly.

How it grows

Buy a container-grown plant, or take a rooted tip from a friend’s plant in autumn.

Plant in autumn or early spring, in sun or light shade, in soil improved with compost.

Put in supports before the canes grow. Two horizontal wires at 1 m and 1.5 m against a fence, or a post and wire row, will do.

Tie the new canes in as they extend, fanning them along the wires. Loose canes arch to the ground and root at the tips, which is how one plant becomes six.

Cut the fruited canes to ground level immediately after harvest, and tie in the new season’s canes to replace them. This is the whole of the pruning.

It is self-fertile, so a single plant crops well.

Through the seasons

New canes emerge from the base in spring and extend fast through May and June.

Last year’s canes flower in June and July, small pink flowers tucked inside their bristly cases.

Fruit ripens from mid-July into August. The calyx peels back when the berry is ready, which makes ripeness obvious from a distance.

Pick every day or two in the season. The fruit is soft and does not hold once ripe.

Cut out the fruited canes as soon as picking finishes, which opens the plant up and lets the new canes ripen properly.

Winter is when the plant earns its second keep, with bare red bristled canes against a fence.

Care difficulty

Easy. It is hardier, more disease-resistant and less demanding than a summer raspberry.

Pruning is simple and unambiguous. Fruited canes come out, new canes go in, once a year.

The one habit needing attention is tip-rooting. Canes left to trail will root and spread, so tie them in or cut them back.

Birds want the fruit and netting is worth it on a small plant.

Nothing else needs doing. No spraying, no thinning, no winter protection.

Watering

Water weekly through dry spells in summer, giving 15 litres at a time.

Moisture through July matters most, since that is when the fruit is sizing and ripening.

Water at the base rather than over the plant. Wet fruit and wet foliage encourage grey mould.

Mulch in spring with compost or well-rotted manure, kept off the cane bases, which holds moisture and feeds at the same time.

An established plant on decent soil copes with an ordinary cool summer without watering.

Warning signs, diseases and pests

Grey furry mould on ripening fruit. Grey mould, which follows wet weather and crowded canes. Thin the canes, pick regularly and remove affected fruit.

Small white grubs inside picked berries. Raspberry beetle. Cultivating the soil lightly beneath the plants in winter exposes the pupae to birds.

Curled shoot tips with clustered insects. Aphids, which matter mainly because they spread virus between plants.

Fruit vanishing as it ripens. Birds. Net from the point the first calyx peels back.

White powdery film on leaves in a dry summer. Powdery mildew. Mulch and water, and the plant grows through it.

New plants appearing where cane tips touched soil. Tip-rooting. Sever and lift them, or tie the canes up before it happens.

Fruit collapsing into a soft, weeping mess within a day of ripening. Spotted wing drosophila, established across North America and Europe since 2008 and still a quarantine priority in Australia and New Zealand. Pick promptly and cover the crop with fine mesh where it occurs.

Growing environment

Full sun gives the heaviest crop. Light shade is tolerated well, which makes it useful along a partly shaded fence.

Soil should be moisture-retentive and well-drained, at pH 5.5 to 7. It is less fussy than a raspberry about soil type.

Shelter improves fruit quality, since wind dries the berries and knocks ripe fruit off.

Cold is no problem, with hardiness well beyond temperate winters.

Allow 2.5 to 3 m of wire per plant. A row against a fence or a boundary is the most practical layout, and it makes an effective informal barrier.

Feeding

Feed once in early spring with a balanced general fertiliser, or mulch with well-rotted manure.

Manure suits it particularly well, supplying nitrogen for the new canes and holding moisture at the same time.

Avoid feeding after midsummer, which produces soft late growth that does not ripen before winter.

On poor sandy soil a second light feed in May supports cane growth.

Sulphate of potash in late winter improves fruiting where canes are strong but the crop is light.

Troubleshooting

Few berries on strong canes. Too much nitrogen, or the fruited canes were left in and crowded the new ones out.

Fruit small and dry. Drought in July. Water and mulch through the ripening period.

Canes rooting everywhere. Tips left touching the ground. Tie them in, and lift the rooted tips in autumn.

Fruit mouldy before it ripens. Wet weather and congestion. Thin the canes to about eight per plant and improve airflow.

Plant declining after several years with mottled leaves. Virus, spread by aphids. Dig it out and replant clean stock elsewhere.

Berries not releasing cleanly. Picked before the calyx peeled back. Wait for the case to open by itself.