October 31, 2025, 2:19 pm | Read time: 4 minutes
By skillfully combining berry bushes, you can harvest fresh fruit from your own garden for many months. By selecting different varieties such as currants, gooseberries, raspberries, and blackberries, a natural harvest sequence with diverse flavors is created. myHOMEBOOK presents three example berry hedges in different sizes that allow for a long, almost uninterrupted berry season—easy to maintain and ideal for any garden.
Eight Shrubs for a Berry Hedge Without Harvest Gaps
Eight proven varieties from five types of berries form a hedge that fits well in most home gardens. Over about twelve meters in length, early, mid, and late-ripening shrubs follow one another, ensuring a continuous harvest throughout the summer.
May Berries
The season starts with May berries, also known as Siberian blueberries or honeyberries. They ripen from the end of May, when other fruits are still weeks or even months away. Since they are not self-fertile, two varieties must always be planted together to harvest berries. Popular varieties include ‘Morena’ and the slightly later-ripening ‘Fialka’. The elongated, blue-black fruits taste similar to blueberries.
Jostaberries
In June, jostaberries follow. The ‘Jostine’ variety is self-fertile, vigorous, and robust. Its dark fruits combine the flavor of gooseberries and currants, bridging the gap between May berries and currants.
Red and White Currants
Very early currants can be harvested from mid-June. Many other varieties ripen only in July. Currants are self-fertile but yield higher when a second variety is nearby. ‘Rolan’ provides large, medium-red berries with an aromatic-tart flavor from mid-July. Around the same time, ‘Versailler,’ the classic among white currants, ripens, known for its sweet, particularly aromatic fruits.
Gooseberries
Gooseberries have a similar ripening time. They are usually self-fertile but produce better yields when a second variety grows nearby. The ‘Hinnonmäki Yellow’ variety is relatively resistant to mildew and bears sweet-aromatic fruits.
Autumn Raspberries
In late summer, the harvest season for autumn raspberries begins, often lasting until the first frost. Planting two varieties usually increases yield, but it’s not necessary. ‘Autumn Bliss’ is a well-known early autumn raspberry. It can be harvested from mid-August and tastes sweet-tart and aromatic. Also ready for harvest from August is the very aromatic and large-fruited ‘Himbo Top’. To prevent the formation of typical raspberry runners, a root barrier is recommended. Raspberries are best planted at the end of the hedge, where they are more accessible and the gap in the bed after pruning is less noticeable.
For such a continuous berry hedge, plan for a total length of about twelve meters and a width of about 1.2 meters. Depending on the growth behavior of the individual species, the planting distance ranges from about one to one and a half meters. More robust shrubs like the jostaberry need a bit more space.
Of course, there are many other varieties with which berry hedges can be designed. The key is that the ripening times are distributed differently.
Planting and caring for blackcurrants in the garden
These 4 Shrubs You Should Still Prune in July
Compact Berry Hedge for Small Gardens
About 3 to 3.5 meters is enough to plant a small berry hedge that provides fruit almost all summer.
At the end of June, the red currant ‘Jonkheer van Tets’ starts, a variety with large, juicy berries and good taste. In July, the proven gooseberry ‘Hinnonmäki Yellow’ follows with its sweet-aromatic fruits. From August until the frost, the autumn raspberry ‘Himbo Top’ provides the fruity conclusion to the berry summer.
Extended Berry Hedge for Large Gardens
Those with more space can extend the continuously bearing berry hedge. Summer raspberries, such as the productive, sweet-aromatic ‘Willamette’ and the very flavorful, sweet ‘Meeker’, ripen from July. They provide an early raspberry harvest and harmonize well with the later autumn varieties.
Black currants like ‘Ben Sarek’ (high yields, very robust) and ‘Rosenthals Langtraubige’ (strong aroma with pleasant acidity) are also great candidates for a berry hedge and yield from July to August. They are self-fertile but achieve higher yields when two varieties are planted side by side. Planting a second gooseberry variety, such as the red-fruited ‘Redeva’, allows for the harvest of sweet-fruity berries from July.
For this XXL version, plan for about 18 meters in length and around 1.2 meters in width. With a double-row planting, a length of about 11 to 13 meters is sufficient if the shrubs are staggered. The width should then be expanded to about 1.8 meters to leave some space for maintenance and harvesting between the plants.