The **raspberry (Rubus idaeus)** is a hardy native cane fruit, perfect for the shrub layer of a forest garden where it will crop happily in the dappled light beneath taller trees. **Fascinating notes:** - The roots are perennial but the canes are biennial: a cane grows leafily in its first year (primocane), fruits in its second (floricane), then dies — which is the whole logic behind raspberry pruning. - Autumn-fruiting varieties break that rule, cropping on the current season's canes, so they can simply be cut to the ground each winter — by far the easiest soft fruit to manage. - Raspberries spread by underground suckers and will gently colonise; useful for a productive thicket, less so in a tidy bed. - The flowers are quietly excellent for bees, and any fruit you miss is quickly taken by garden birds.