Ouachita Blackberry 2 Live Starter Plants, Thornless Berry Bush, Disease Resistant

What you'll get:
Two healthy Ouachita Blackberry starter plants, 4 to 8 inches tall, rooted and ready to plant. Carefully packed and shipped to arrive in excellent condition.

Growing basics:
Sunlight: Full sun is essential for the best fruit production. Ouachita needs a warm, open, sunny position with at least 6 hours of direct sun a day to produce its best crop of large, sweet berries.
Soil: Moist, well-draining soil enriched with plenty of organic matter. Work in generous amounts of compost before planting to build a fertile, moisture-retentive growing environment. Ouachita performs best in slightly acidic soil with a pH of around 5.5 to 6.5.
Planting: Space plants 4 to 6 feet apart to allow good airflow and room for the canes to develop fully. Plant at the same depth as the plant was growing in its nursery container.
Watering: Keep the soil consistently moist throughout the growing season, especially during flowering and fruiting when consistent moisture directly affects berry size and sweetness. Deep, infrequent watering is preferable to shallow, frequent watering. Avoid waterlogging.
Mulching: Apply a generous layer of mulch around the base of each plant to conserve moisture, suppress weeds, and maintain the slightly acidic soil conditions Ouachita prefers.
Feeding: Apply a balanced fertiliser in early spring as new growth begins. A second application after fruiting helps the plant recover and build strength for the following season.
Support: Ouachita produces strong, erect canes that are more self-supporting than many blackberry varieties, though a simple trellis or wire system still helps keep the plant tidy and makes harvesting easier and more efficient.
Pruning: Blackberries fruit on second-year canes. After harvest, remove the canes that have fruited down to the ground to make room for the strong new canes that will carry the following year's crop.
Hardiness: Ouachita performs best in USDA zones 6 to 9 and is notably resistant to double blossom and rosette diseases, giving it a significant practical advantage over less disease-resistant varieties in areas where these problems are prevalent.

What makes Ouachita special?
Ouachita is one of the most acclaimed thornless blackberry varieties from the University of Arkansas breeding programme, and it has earned a well-deserved reputation as one of the most reliable, productive, and disease-resistant blackberries available to home growers. Also sometimes listed as Wichita, it was developed with a specific focus on combining outstanding fruit quality with superior disease resistance, and it delivers on both counts consistently.
The berries are large, firm, and sweet with a rich, classic blackberry flavour and an attractive glossy appearance that makes them as appealing to look at as they are to eat. Ouachita ripens in the middle of the season, fitting neatly into the berry calendar, and produces generous yields over an extended harvest period. The erect, self-supporting canes are among the tidiest and most manageable of any blackberry variety, and the plant's strong disease resistance means less maintenance and more reliable cropping year after year. A thoroughly excellent blackberry variety that combines beauty, flavour, productivity, and resilience in one outstanding plant.

All plants are grown and packed with care. If your plant arrives damaged, please get in touch and we'll make it right.