Plants We Love: Flowering Raspberry (Rubus odoratus)

Common name: Flowering raspberry, pink thimbleberry

Botanical name:Rubus odoratus

Virtues: Fragrant, pretty flowers that attract butterflies.

Flower: Large, open, fragrant pink flowers appear in summer. Five papery pink petals surround a flat disc of pinkish yellow stamens. Flowers are two inches wide. Raspberries follow them but these are not good for eating or baking.

Foliage: Large, coarsely textured bright green leaves.

Habit: Deciduous shrub 3 to 6 feet tall and twice as wide. Spreads by suckers (roots and stems that grow from a bud on the parent plant's roots or stems).

Season: Summer.

Origin: Moist shade and woodland edges of the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, eastern Midwest and upper South.

Cultivation: Full sun to shade. Prefers regular water but tolerates drought, dry shade and poor soil. Prune after fruits appear. USDA Zones 3–8.

Image courtesy of Missouri Botanical Garden PlantFinder

--------

Interested in flowering plants? Download Horticulture's Smart Gardening Technique: Flowering Gardening