I have never seen thorny suckers from the Thornless Evergreen in 10 years of growing it, but the Oregon became a thorny mess after just a few years from planting, so I had it removed. I don’t know why these are referred to as the same plant? So confusing!

One form of Black Satin or Chester may give larger fruit, fruit earlier than another of the same named plant elsewhere and be more adaptable in terms of vigor. Merton Thornless has a few different selections giving bigger fruit or ripening earlier. These selections are rarely if ever seen or sold to the public.

This can be said of many of the older cultivars and even newer ones which must be grown under tunnels to ripen evenly. Blackberry Helen is diseases prone and suffers badly in frosts. The newer Navaho crosses are so so good but tend to lose vigor and need to be replaced after 7/8 years.

A trailing type can be a much better option for the home garden e.g Adrienne, excepting Waldo as it is very virus prone. Karaka Black in some European trials showed erratic yields, but has proved hardy to -24 celsius, but is too thorny. There is no ideal cultivar!

Thorny Fantasia(a natural cross of Merton thornless x wild Himalayan?) is a great allotment type or a vandal proof barrier. You will pick a huge crop. 50 pounds or more is not uncommonly seen in our allotment.

My garden has the Merton type still happily growing which was planted 40 years ago as a tip layered plant from original stock. A delightful plant to grow with highly insect attractive flowers!

I now grow Karaka black, a very hardy and disease resistant plant. The flavour is exceptional when ripe and far exceeds the thornless acidic taste. Thorny, but easy to pick from and its flowers are a pretty white. However despite its manageability it suckers underground especially in good soil, but more free plants!

https://www.jic.ac.uk/about-us/history-of-plant-microbial-science-at-john-innes centre/

Other consideration will always be cost etc, but that will always be the 1st priority for some and the old adage buy cheap pay twice is so true, when I consider those cheap poundshop purchases which all came to nothing. But you can be lucky sometimes as I was with a blackberry Waldo which is a wonderful cropper of great tasting fruits!

Later flowering or fruit ripening does not always signify a high chill hour requirement in some rubus cultivars as it can depend more on GDH(growth degree hours) based on heat to break endormancy- bud, and Merton has plenty(18,900+) hence it thrives in these hotter places whilst having a lower chill need than most e.g Chester etc.

The Everthornless clone of it(retains thornlessness from its roots!) has never gained wide popularity outside of commercial plantings other than Oregon U.S as it is prone to rust and is rarely offered publicly; plus it retains thorns on the bottom two feet of the plant! Some Thornless Evergreen variations sold could be this Everthornless type crept into the mix by mistake. But to most the Thornless Evergreen is still superior for the amateur fruit grower.

Highly recommended for its attractive appearance. Great for growing in a big container and very hardy. Relatively cheap and easy to find too in most garden centres.

A much improved version of the stalwart Black Satin, being sweeter with firmer fuits and comparable to Chester thornless. The yield is double that of most thornless varieties and equals Chester’s most years. Disease resistance is high. Season late July until end of Oct. Its flowers are mauve to pink turning white, unlike Chester’s which remain mauve.

Also with the notable climate change in the last decade some late fruit ripeners are becoming much earlier. The still popular Merton Thornless is now consistently early/mid Aug whereas before it used to be very late August ripening in my garden. I don’t rate many of the newer thornless types as they lack vigor and the fruits are bland tasting though yields are not bad as in Loch Ness.

Both plantings fizzled out. The one in a huge barrel was pot bound within 18 months, putting out no new growth nor canes. The other in a selected part of the garden just put out leaf growth and stopped flowering as its runners spread underground at an undesirable rate like Asterina. Needless to say it was removed. None of these newer releases from the U.S are suited to the UK.

Now my Chester plant has no such problems and is highly recommended if you have space – under a sheltered area it will fruit late July or mid Aug out in the open. Waldo gives superb quality fruit, but is Calico virus prone and is brittle to grow. Few blackberries are ideally suited to container growing. Blackberry Helen, N.Bigandearly or Merton Thornless are the best choices for this!

The large white flowers were pretty to see and a bee magnet. It proved to be an excellent cropper of sweet firm berries of a good size in mid July onwards. It put out 3 more canes in mid summer. Now it is growing nicely with lots of shoots opening on the canes. Expecting a big crop of blackberries!

I got myself a Navaho Summerlong blackberry after reading about it here. What a great plant with pretty flowers. It set loads of medium sized sweet fruit last year. Seeds are tiny! It set more than my Loch Tay.

I find blackberry Thornfree has a fine flavour as Merton, but concensus is both too acidic, yet many rave on how good Loganberry is which is sharp tasting!

The Navaho Early has a better flower display, but is more erratic in ripening evenly. More disease prone too and its vigor declines after only a few years.

Sequestered iron in the soil solves the chlorosis, but if it persists you may have nematodes in the soil or virus borne RBDV (raspberry bush dwarf virus transmitted by aphids/pollen etc) which is making a comeback in the UK and Navaho original can be quite prone along with orange rust, but rare.

If you have a thornless plant which has lasted 10 years then you’ve been lucky as most fizzle out before then and decline quickly in vigor.

Raspberries are the same after 8 years. Best to replace both after this period of time and don’t plant in the same area. I’ve yet to see a healthy thornless planting of blackberry other than Chester(mine is 15 years going strong) which last the course in our climate!

It will never suffer from frost as it flowers June onwards and has a relatively compact season of usually Mid Aug to end of Sept. I’ve picked crops of over 10 pounds in some years. It needs a good fertilizer to produce new canes, but even if it produces only one it will still load up with juicy fruit which are about as close to the wild taste as you will ever get.

Merton is only used for breeding new cultivars because of its stable thornless trait and its fruit went out of favour for U.S markets as they are quite soft so didnt ship too well. A true heritage plant from the famous John Innes Institute.

It is a superb cultivar for the home garden and unaffected by pests or disease still makes it a great choice for planting.

Maybe it is my heavy clay soil? I guess some aphid borne transmitted virus could be a cause as the newer canes in both appear stunted and spindly. Navaho I read is prone to raspberry bush dwarf virus, but aren’t they all?. Also some canes have snapped off from the base. I’ve never seen these problems with an old plantings (15 years!) of Merton Thornless and John Innes in a different part of my garden but not that far away. I can’t recommend Navaho plants for the long term and will grub them out in Autumn.

Maybe it is my heavy clay soil? I guess some aphid borne transmitted virus could be a cause as the newer canes in both appear stunted and spindly. Navaho I read is prone to raspberry bush dwarf virus, but aren’t they all?. Also some canes have snapped off from the base. I’ve never seen these problems with an old plantings (15 years!) of Merton Thornless and John Innes in a different part of my garden but not that far away. I can’t recommend Navaho plants for the long term and will grub them out in Autumn.

The Summerlong is superior to the other Navaho types which I found to be quite late in ripening, prone to chlorosis, and flowers can be damaged by heavy showers or fail to open due to aborted pollination. Both the Navahos Bigandearly/Original can suffer badly from white drupelets from sun scorch. The canes in Bigandearly can break off from the base easily whilst the original suckers all over the place. Only ever seen this brittleness in Waldo previously.

The blackberry Navaho Summerlong suffers none of these problems(apart from the odd white druplet now and again which happens in just a few early ripening berries after rain shower then a sunny period.

It is very disease resistant and is the most compact season ripening blackberry I’ve ever seen- mid July to mid Sept or sooner and it is done whatever weather conditions. Best I’ve seen to date.

A big plant with vigor that never ceases even in old plantings and potentially it can give crops of over 20kg, if you let it grow to its full potential.

Crops late July until early frosts under an open car port frame. Unmatched and probably still the no1 commercial plant in the world due to its hardiness and disease resistance!

I’ve grown reliable Merton Thornless for over two decades as it is great for blackberry and apple pie, but not fresh eating unless you get the hot summer. Time for a newer earlier fruiting desert cultivar. I will maybe go for an early fruiting blackberry Helen.

There’s another type called blackberry Black Jack with huge fruit being trialed with chill hours of 500. Tested in parts of Spain. Google it as there’s a pdf on it.

Other newer types like Navaho The Big Easy look promising. You might like Navaho Bigandearly (trialed well in UK) which is sweet when ripe with tiny seeds but has a juicy flavour. Karaka Black has a lovely taste too.

REPLY: This is my understanding of Driscoll’s Victoria. Firstly, there is no variety “Driscoll’s Victoria”, that is just a marketing name. Second, no one sells canes of Driscoll’s Victoria because they are patented, or whatever the term is. Thirdly, they are massively fussy plants and need to be grown under glass in very controlled conditions.

I would imagine that lots of chemicals are used to produce the blackberries and certainly would avoid them like the plague as both a shop bought and a garden variety. Others may have different opinions.

Early this year I cut down the first year’s canes. Growth of new canes, 5 on each plant has been very vigorous, with lots of flowers. Fruit set well, but late, and is now only ripening in mid October. Fortunately the Autumn has been mild so far so we are gathering a little fruit, (HUGE, sweet and flavourful) but most is still green and will inevitably be cut off by the first sharp frost.

I did double dig the narrow, long beds, incorporating a lot of well rooted compost and manure into the clay soil. In future years I think I will drop fleece screens from the eaves of the greenhouses to extend the ripening period.

You never have these problems with most modern thornless blackberries and the fruit can arguably taste much superior to wild forms and be disease free, if good virus free stock is purchased.

I don’t care for Merton Thornless as it tends to be sour and seedy plus mostly late. Chester is late as well, but tastes great. Where I am late season blackberries will never ripen a full crop-about a third is lost due to lack of sun, so as a rule after mid Sept I chop the plants down. I’ve had great success with Navaho and it is easy to root a new plant from a stem cutting or from its roots. The new Navaho cross is called The Big Easy by the way.

There’s also a new hybrid by the same company called Navaho Easy which boasts of huge aromatic berries mid July 50% bigger than the Bigandearly’s already large fruit. Perhaps this great site may test it out later or some other blackberry enthusiast?

Most ripened from mid July to mid Aug with final small batch into Sept first week. Final weight was 2.5kg from two canes, with the plant putting out four more new canes for next year. Average fruit weight of 100 fruits was 625g as well as total yield so a very uniform plant overall. Some fruits weighing 7.5g. Fruit is very firm and juicy with small seeds. Pleasantly mildly sweet when fully ripe.

Great garden plant much better than blackberry Helen which is too acidic and disease prone. This Navaho has some ornamental value as the flowers are a pretty rose pink and the plant is very stout and upright. It survived some poorly drained soil in my garden  without problems. Verdict: ideal plant.

If you are lucky to get the sun the rest will ripen mid August to mid Sept otherwise its best to chop the plant down like other thornless types as the fruit never ripen. Yields are moderate 4 to 6 pounds per plant on two canes usually, but are very firm fruits resistant to mould and pesky flies. Good to grow in a large container as I do and easy to tend.

I viewed blackberry Chester on the show bench in a trial exhibition and that one is totally thornless with excellent tasting fruit as well as fruiting in late July onwards. A manageable plant, if you reduce its canes to two or three.

Commercially Chester is unmatched as a blackberry plant and is still no1 for commercial growers. Forgot the others like Merton thornless, Black Satin which are acidic and prone to mould. Only Navaho is as popular as Chester and recommended for quality as much as a good yield.

The newer types like Natchez, Ouachita, etc. are too insipid for me with a watery taste. Primocane blackberries (double cropping) are a waste of time here.

This glorious weather has given us a bumper crop after an abysmally harsh Winter and poor Spring. The Navaho BigandEarly set hundreds of very big ripe blackberries from mid July- half of its crop by the end of the month- weighing in at a total of 3 pounds.

The Chester started ripening early August, but the surprise blackberry was the Merton Thornless ripening late July(22nd) a month earlier than usual and giving a delicious crop. The blackberry Adrienne’s fruit like the Karaka black was prone to going mouldy in the heat and odd shower, the Chester too after heavy rains and if not picked at the right time. The Merton and N.Early types are very firm and good for juicing as well as general purposes as they seem to hold up well in any condition.

For the UK I would definitely recommend N.Bigandearly (white druplets on a few berries due to sun scorching!) with the Merton Thornless. And the blackberry Chester plant, if you have the space to grow it!

The Bigandearly started flowering pink flowers the end of May, but the Summerlong had started mid May with its pure white flowers, yet both are ripening same time due to this hot heat wave. The Bigandearly has huge juicy oblong like blackberries, the other smaller. We weighed them and they were averaging 8g.

All look fruits look similar sized on its canes with well three or four hundred more to pick at a good guess. The Summerlong has mostly averaged sized round ones- weighing 5g with some bigger ones of oblong shape. Both are sweet tasting with a nice fruity aroma. I replaced my Black Satin and Oregon Thornless with these two and never regretted.

If you want only one then the Bigandearly is the one to go for as its fruits are uniformly big and it is a compact plant. I’d to net it as the thrushes love the big attractive fruit as well. My soil is very heavy and stony, but these compact plants love it. Thanks again to this site for the info!

I bought a Navaho Early for the back wall instead. Very compact, strong and upright, minimal pruning and has nice pinkish white flowers. Yields are lowish 2 to 3 kg, but no hard work picking and it survives all conditions. Ideal for lazy gardeners like me.

I wonder if I might have caused the suckering by damaging its roots when I was weeding around it the 1st season of planting? It doesn’t do it now and thankfully just put canes out from the centre. Blackberries are beginning to ripen now and should be ready mid July.

Both are good growers with attractive flowers and give fair yields. I prefer the Bigandearly because it grows anywhere and has nice very large pink flowers in June, and compact too, so won’t take over your space. Yields are not great, about 5 pounds per plant, but produces huge blackberries so well worth it. It is okay to grow in a 30 litre tub as I do.

The Summerlong does better in the garden and give considerable yields up to and over 10 pounds per bush, but requires good nutrition and more maintenance than Bigandearly which is far less fussier to soil conditions or your neglect.

I see Merton Thornless is being recommended still. There’s much better out there. That one is far too late ripening and the fruit quality is acid to fair.

I’ve now chosen to grow a thornless boysenberry as the flavor is renowned, but hardiness/yields may be later issues? I’d grown Medana Tayberry, but the fruit was far too mushy for me.

It’s a delightful plant to grow, has a wonderful taste when ripe of the wild blackberry and can fruit anytime from early August onwards in a good summer giving a season of 6 weeks. Yields are moderate- about 3kg on average. It’s okay to grow in a patio container and it gives a nice display of white flowers June.

Also it is very forgiving of any soil type and immensely disease resistant with good winter hardiness of minus 20 Celsius. Recommended for those with little space as the canes are short and stout and have moderate vigor. Pests tend leave it alone too! Ideal for both the novice gardener or expert alike.

Those Navaho cultivars needs good soil nutrition to maintain a high yield, but don’t they all? Plus aphid pests leave the Summerlong type well alone, but the other Big & Early can be plagued by them as its leaves are huge and juicy to the critters! I still have a Black Satin bought from a poundshop over a decade ago and find it more disease resistance/vigorous even with neglect than Chester or any blackberry which I’d grown. The yield is huge, flowers a pretty pink white hue. Fruit so so unless very ripe, but tasty enough.

I would still recommend Black Satin for any soil type (however it may not be sourced correctly in some places as my neighbour bought one and it sprouted big thorns, so pot luck!) as it ripens late July until Oct and that newer one Navaho Summerlong for a compact 5 or 6 week ripening mid July until early/Mid Sep. Cheers!

I’ve grown all the Navaho forms over the years. The original is far too late to ripen in the UK. The BigandEarly is easy to recommend for the garden as it is an exceptionally hardy, rose pink flowering plant which is unusual in that it’s not phased by cold whatsoever and appears to still grow during winter when one would assume it should be dormant. In pure wet clay it thrives as well without any root rot as its roots are very fibrous.

I’ve never seen this growth pattern in the plant Summerlong or in other blackberries. I pick about 2 or 3kg a year of huge tasty berries. The only drawback I encountered with any Navaho plant is white druplets at the start of the season. Sunscorch or insects, who knows?

The new Navaho are crosses with Lochness as well. Both are very suitable for the amateur gardener as they ripen fairly evenly, but Summer long is the superior. Root rot is a risk in any young plant of blackberry, but when a plant is established the risk is quite low. Our N. Summerlong has been with us for 5 years in a heavy soil growing well without any disease and we second this site’s blackberry recommendations. The sparse suckers tend to rot over winter in any case.

Blackberry Chester can be prone to root rot in heavy soils, but thrives in it nonetheless. Hull is better in regards to adaptation and yields a much sweeter earlier berry, but again  half of its yield like Chester fails to ripen fully in our climate.

Black Satin is too acid as is Thornfree. Those are good for culinary purposes only. Merton Thornless another I grew is a heavy cropper, but rather late to ripen in Aug and loses much of its crop to rot or red berries due to lack of sun hours as the season ends.

The newer Navahos are good. The original is rust prone however, but I haven’t seen it in the newer types. BigandEarly has large beautiful pink flowers and large fruity oblong berries. Low yielding about 2.5kg, but adapts very well to heavy soils and has excellent disease resistance. It never suckers! Late to ripen from late July to August and can continue well into Sept.

Summerlong is similar though 7 to 10 days earlier ripening of smaller uniform sweeter berries borne on attractive white flowers. Yield can be high 4 to 8kg or higher, if allowed to spread. Young plants can die to root rot, hence those suckering roots tend not to survive a bad winter due to weak, rather sparse growth of low vigor. Karaka Black is virus prone and its yield declines after a few years. Oregon Thornless is reliable, but late ripening of bland tiny berries and it suckers thorny canes in time. Loch Ness is good for cooking, but the berry is grassy tasting as is Loch Tay’s. Double pink flowering Loch Maree is disease prone.

The others you mention Asterina, Natchez etc are sprawling growers. Natchez suffers from a poor leaf to cane ratio if left unpruned and over crops which completely weakens the plant for subsequent seasons. Osage is a much better blackberry or Ouachita, but too vigorous for the home garden. Commercial growers prefer these types. Reuben is a complete failure in the U.K.

My recommendations are Hull Blackberry or Loch Ness and both of the newer Navaho  cultivars for the home garden, especially the Bigandearly for a large patio container due to its aesthetic nature and strong uprightness.

The newer Navaho types Summerlong and Bigandearly (no way early fruiting!) are quite variable according to many, but you are correct in saying Summerlong is the better apart from the suckering. The suckers are quite spindly and easily removed mind you.

Blackberry Karaka Black is disease prone and needs good soil maintenance to achieve a good yield. I noticed a lot of root rot in heavy soil and aphid attacks were very persistent. Thanks.