Shrub · Rosaceae
Loganberry
Rubus × loganobaccus
With full sun, rich soil, and a sturdy trellis, the loganberry rewards you with a long, tart-sweet summer harvest.
Full sun
Every 5–7 days
USDA 5–9
5–7 ft · 1.5–2 m
Overview
The loganberry began as a happy cross between a blackberry and a raspberry, and gardeners have grown it ever since for its large, deep red fruit. It sits within the rose family beside its bramble relatives, and just like a blackberry it holds onto its core as you pick. The taste falls neatly between its two parents, brighter than a raspberry yet fuller than a blackberry, and that is part of its charm.
Think of it as a trailing perennial that sends out long, quick-growing canes eager to climb a fence or trellis rather than stand up alone. The plant itself lives on for years, though its canes follow a two-year rhythm: they grow one season, fruit the next, and are then finished. Once that rhythm clicks into place, pruning stops feeling like a puzzle.
This is a plant for the open garden, comfortably hardy across USDA zones 5 to 9 and content with room to ramble. It asks for little, yet it does feel hard cold, and it will knit into a thicket if you let the cane tips root wherever they land. Give it a sheltered, sunny corner and keep a friendly eye on the canes, and it will earn every bit of the space.
Care
The short version: give it full sun, rich well-drained soil, and a dependable 1 to 2 inches of water a week. Guide the canes up a trellis, offer a spring feed, and simply remove each cane the year after it has fruited.
Light
Loganberries fruit best in full sun, and that steady light is exactly what turns the berries sweet. A little partial shade will not ruin them, but the shadier the spot, the smaller and fewer your berries tend to be.
Water
Aim to give the plant 1 to 2 inches of water a week, and be a touch more generous while it is flowering and the fruit is swelling. Keep the soil pleasantly moist but never soggy, since these canes really dislike sitting in waterlogged ground.
Soil
Set it into rich, well-drained loam with plenty of organic matter mixed through, and the roots will settle in happily. A gently acidic pH somewhere between 5.5 and 6.5 suits it beautifully, and good drainage does the rest.
Temperature
This is a tough plant that copes with a broad span, roughly 5°F to 86°F (-15°C to 30°C), which places it in USDA zones 5 to 9. It does feel a hard freeze though, so give the canes some shelter or a cover where winters turn truly harsh.
Humidity
Everyday outdoor humidity in the 40% to 70% band suits it just fine, so you rarely need to fuss over it. Airflow matters far more, because still, damp air around crowded canes is just what gray mold and purple blotch are hoping for.
Feeding
Offer a feed in early spring as fresh growth appears, reaching for a nitrogen-rich balanced fertilizer such as 10-10-10 and finishing with a little compost. That single seasonal meal is plenty to push out a strong flush of new canes.
Pruning
Pruning simply follows the cane cycle, so there is nothing to fear. Cut the old floricanes that have just fruited right down to the ground after harvest, guide the new primocanes onto the trellis, then tidy and tie everything in during late winter.
Repotting
This one lives in the ground and rarely needs a pot at all. If you do keep one in a container, refresh it or move it up every 1 to 2 years in late winter, keeping an eye out for roots circling the pot or water running straight through.
Size & spacing
Expect plants to reach 5 to 6.5 feet (150 to 200 cm) tall and to spread a generous 6 to 10 feet (1.8 to 3 m) wide along the trellis. Those long trailing canes love to run, so give them room and they will reward you.
When to plant
The loganberry follows the seasons outdoors rather than any indoor calendar, so there is no rush and no guesswork. Set young plants out in early spring once hard frost has passed, or in late fall where winters stay gentle. It flowers in late spring, and the fruit comes in from late June through August.
Northern hemisphere
Southern hemisphere
Typical months for a temperate climate: start earlier in warm zones, later where spring frosts linger.
- Plant: Early spring after the danger of hard frost has passed, or late fall in mild-winter regions
- Harvest: Blooms late spring; harvest late June through August
Hardiness
USDA hardiness zones: 5–9
Temperature: down to -29°C
Troubleshooting
Take heart, because loganberry troubles are few and most turn up on the canes or the ripening fruit after a damp spell. Spotting them early is more than half the battle, and a small fix now keeps things from traveling down the row. Look through the notes below, find what matches, and step in while it still does good.
Purple-brown blotches creeping along the canes
Those spreading marks are purple blotch, a fungus that settles onto the canes and moves quickest in wet weather and a crowded bed. It starts as small spots near the nodes, then they swell and merge together. Take heart and simply cut out the affected canes, thin the rest so air can move through, and only turn to a labeled fungicide if it truly digs in.
Fix:
- Prune out and destroy infected canes
- Thin canes to open the canopy
- Apply a labeled fungicide if infection is severe
Soft berries wearing a coat of gray fuzz
That fuzzy gray coating is gray mold, brought on by botrytis, and it moves in during damp, humid stretches just as the fruit ripens. The berries turn soft and then slump under the coating. Gently pick off and bin anything infected, harvest ripe fruit often so none sits around, and open up the canopy so the berries can dry quickly.
Fix:
- Remove and discard infected fruit
- Harvest ripe berries promptly and frequently
- Improve airflow around the canopy
Canes that stay brown and refuse to leaf out in spring
Trailing brambles like the loganberry feel the cold, so a hard winter can leave you with dead canes even while the crown below quietly survives. Look for brown, brittle wood that snaps rather than bends. Do not despair: cut those dead canes back to live tissue or the ground, and in cold areas mulch the crown and lower or cover the canes before winter arrives.
Fix:
- Prune dead canes back to live tissue or the ground
- Protect canes over winter in cold sites
Toxicity
You can relax around this one: the loganberry carries nothing poisonous, so a home with pets and little ones is perfectly fine. The berries are lovely to eat and no part of the plant will harm anyone who tastes it. The only thing to mind is physical, since standard canes wear sharp prickles, so slip on gloves for pruning and pick a thornless kind if scratches worry you.
Safe for
People · Cats · Dogs · Horses · Rabbits · Livestock · Birds
Cats None
Perfectly safe company. A cat that nibbles a leaf comes to no harm, though the prickles on thorned canes can give a curious nose a scratch.
Dogs None
Nothing toxic lurks here, so a dog is welcome to share a few ripe berries. Wolfing down a heap of leaves might bring a passing tummy upset, but nothing worse than that.
Horses Safe
Horses can graze near the canes without any harm at all. The thorns are the one thing to watch, since a sharp prickle can scratch a soft muzzle.
Rabbits Safe
Rabbits are free to browse the leaves and fruit as they please. There is nothing poisonous in the plant, so it counts as safe forage for them.
Livestock Safe
Cattle, goats, and sheep can graze the foliage with no risk of poisoning whatsoever. The stems do carry prickles, so those thorns are the only real concern.
Birds Safe
Birds adore the ripe berries and take no harm from them at all. They help themselves to the crop and kindly scatter the seed as they go.
People Safe
The berries are a real treat, fresh or cooked, and the whole plant is safe to handle and eat. The thorns on standard forms are the only thing that bites back, so pop on gloves before you prune.
Thorned forms bear sharp prickles that can scratch pets and handlers, while thornless cultivars exist; wear gloves when training or pruning canes.
Varieties
There are really only a couple of loganberry types you need to know, and the main difference comes down to whether the canes carry thorns. Here are the two you are most likely to come across.
Thornless Loganberry (L654)
Its smooth, spineless canes make picking and training so much kinder on the hands than the thorned type.
Loganberry LY59
This is the familiar thorned, heavy-cropping clone that growers have raised commercially for many years.
Companions
The loganberry shares soil diseases with a few common crops, so the smarter move is knowing what to keep it away from rather than what to plant beside it.
Keep apart
Solanaceous crops (tomato, potato, pepper, eggplant): Share Verticillium wilt; avoid planting brambles where these crops recently grew
Wild brambles: Can harbor viruses and diseases that spread to cultivated canes
How to propagate
Making more loganberries is genuinely easy, and the happiest news is that the plant does most of the work for you once a cane tip settles onto the soil.
LayeringEasy
Late summer to early fall · Roots in about 4 to 8 weeks; transplant the rooted tip the following spring
Tip-layering is the usual, almost effortless way to raise more trailing brambles, and it is a lovely first project. In late summer or early fall, bend a growing cane tip down and tuck it into the soil, where it will root in about 4 to 8 weeks. Leave it undisturbed, then lift the rooted tip to its new home the following spring.
Stem cuttingsModerate
Summer (softwood) or late winter (hardwood) · Several weeks to a few months to root and establish
Cuttings are less common than tip layering, though they work nicely for building up the thornless clones. Take softwood cuttings in summer or hardwood ones in late winter, and give them several weeks to a few months to root and settle before you count them as established.
Myths
A loganberry is really just a type of raspberry.
In truth it is a cross between a blackberry and a raspberry, and it keeps company with the trailing blackberries rather than the raspberries. Like a blackberry, it holds onto its core when you pick the fruit, and that little detail is the simplest way to tell the two apart.
Every loganberry plant comes armed with thorns.
Both thorned and thornless kinds are grown, so prickles are not a foregone conclusion at all. Choose a spineless form and the picking and pruning become far gentler, with no sharp canes to work around.