How to Replant Red Raspberry Plants

Red raspberry plants self-propagate through runner roots. If you look around the base of your raspberry bush each spring, you will see baby raspberry plants called suckers. To keep the bush from becoming too dense, divide it by cutting the suckers with a sharp spade, leaving roots attached, and then replant the suckers root-down in a more spacious location. Use the same steps you would to transplant a nursery raspberry bush.

Spade
Bucket
Water

Instructions

- 1
  Locate suckers growing from lateral underground stems (runner roots) near the mature raspberry bush in early spring. Choose strong suckers with healthy roots.
- 2
  Cut into the soil, with a sharp spade, in a circle around the baby raspberry plant to sever it carefully from the mother plant.
- 3
  Loosen the soil around and under the raspberry sucker to remove it from the ground with its roots attached. Raspberry roots are shallow, growing no deeper than 10 inches. If you drive your spade into the ground to a depth of 1 foot, you should be able to take the baby bush out completely with its roots.
- 4
  Put the suckers in a bucket of water to keep the roots from drying out.
- 5
  Dig holes as deep as the roots, and twice as wide as they are deep, in a location that receives at least 6 hours of sun. Space holes 2 feet apart and rows 8 to 12 feet apart.
- 6
  Plant one raspberry seedling per hole. Refill with topsoil and water thoroughly.

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