Boysenberry Blackberry Plant

Once you see a ripe boysenberry, you will see for yourself that it is a distinctive hybrid combination of two parents: blackberry bush X raspberry bush. The berries are round, very large and purple when completely ripe, but commercial boysenberries are harvested when under-ripe with a reddish blush, however, the berries at this stage are slightly tart when under-ripe, but when ripe the taste develops an intense floral aroma, sweetly tasting and juicy when fully soft and dark purple. Each berry is very delicate when completely ripe from May to July and thin-skinned with a rich fruity flavor that is unmistakably identifiable as that of a boysenberry. Unfortunately, you probably will never see these in the grocery store or a roadside market, unless you grow some boysenberry bushes for yourself, because the shelf-life is so short in markets. The Boysenberry plant was developed in California, and presumably is a cross between a wild raspberry from Hawaii and a complex combination of a mysterious series of blackberry parents. The thorny canes of the Boysenberry are trailing and some horticulturalists call the Boysenberry a "dewberry", instead of a blackberry, and still other consider these hybrids to exist as a separate class, however, there will be a continuing mystery, because of the complexity of the underlying gene identity of the original boysenberry plants. Hybrid Boysenberry plants are among the easiest fruit bearing plants to grow at home.

•  Cultivated varieties of the Hybrid Boysenberry plants are called hybrids and have much larger berries than the wild types and also the flavor is consistently sweeter, thus avoiding a random bitter berry that is often found growing in the wild. The Hybrid Boysenberry Plant generally starts bearing during the second year after planting and will continue indefinitely. Generally, the berry of the Hybrid Boysenberry plant is most adaptable to all extremes in climates and soils.