The plant is native to Japan, Korea and China. Not an easy plant to find here in the UK, I have never seen them in any garden centres, and had to buy from an online nursery.
They have taken a while to settle in, but its worth the wait. It is closely related to the raspberry. Though really a shrub it sends out new growth (canes) from the ground, like a raspberry, and is best trained against a sunny wall or fence. Give it plenty of organic matter when planting, it won't do well in a dry soil. Mine are trained onto wires fixed to the wall.
The canes are biennial, like raspberries, so they grow one year and fruit the next. Once the cane has fruited in August, remove the cane. You can also pinch back the growth in Spring to encourage branching.
The fruit can be eaten straight from the plant and, if you haven't scoffed them all, can be cooked. I made a delicious crumble using wineberries, strawberries. blueberries and apples. Yum!
The added bonus is that these plants look good in winter too, with their softly hairy bare stems, so would not look out of place in an ornamental garden.
Try this link for buying wineberry plants, order for Autumn planting.
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