How to Grow Raspberry Plants From Clippings

Vegetative Clippings

• 1

  Select raspberry vegetative, or leafy, tips that are still green yet firm during the spring or before dormancy in the fall. These tips should not be woody.

• 2

  Cut the tips off of the mother plant with sharp, disinfected pruners about 6 inches from the tip of the cane. Remove any leaves from the 2 inches of the cutting nearest the cut.

• 3

  Dip the stem in rooting hormone. Use a pencil to make a 2-inch-deep hole in a small planting container filled with damp potting soil. Gently set the cutting into the hole, being careful not to scrape off the rooting hormone in the process.

• 4

  Firm the soil lightly around the cutting. Set it in a location with dappled or partial sun, preferably indoors near a window. Mist the leaves daily with a water spray bottle and keep the soil moist but not soggy until roots form. This should take up to two weeks. Transplant the rooted cutting to a garden location in spring.

Sucker Clippings

• 5

  Remove a sucker from the mother plant with a sharp knife where the sucker meets the mother plant. Suckers generally originate from the roots near the trunk of the mother plant.

• 6

  Plant the sucker in rich, well-drained soil in a sunny location. Stake it with a bamboo pole at least 3 feet tall. Bury the pole 8 inches to a foot in the ground, then tie the sucker to the pole with arbor tape.

• 7

  Water the sucker thoroughly, and make sure the ground is lightly moist while the sucker establishes. Protect the developing root system from temperature and moisture extremes with 3 inches of mulch.