Problems with a raspberry plant.

[garden novice]

We are new to gardening and in need of some advice. We recently bought a heritage raspberry plant with the intention of eventually creating a bit of a raspberry thicket. We have some nibbled leaves and what looks like some dead yellow/brown leaves too. After doing some research we think it might be spidermites or the wasps. Any and all help on what's causing it and how to get rid of it would be gratefully accepted.I put some pictures up too as a reference. Thank you for your help .

 

[Tetters]

Hello Welcome to the forums.
Raspberries will surely make a thicket quickly enough! They are deciduous plants, and the leaves will fall off. It is best to leave the pruning until springtime, and that way they will put some energy back into the roots. When it is time next year, prune off all the old growth and new shoots will appear. There may be more of those than you expect. and next years fruit will appear on the new shoots.
In the meantime I would let the creatures do what they will. Using poisons in the garden is a bad idea in our book, and leads to more problems. It's always best to work with nature, not against it.
Are your raspberries in pots?

 

[MiniOrchardDude]

Hello Welcome to the forums.
Raspberries will surely make a thicket quickly enough! They are deciduous plants, and the leaves will fall off. It is best to leave the pruning until springtime, and that way they will put some energy back into the roots. When it is time next year, prune off all the old growth and new shoots will appear. There may be more of those than you expect. and next years fruit will appear on the new shoots.
In the meantime I would let the creatures do what they will. Using poisons in the garden is a bad idea in our book, and leads to more problems. It's always best to work with nature, not against it.
Are your raspberries in pots?

You should only cut them all down if the variety has fruiting primocanes. Some raspberry plants only produce fruit on the last year canes. Heritage will fruit twice a year if you keep last years canes. This first crop is very heavy in the summer. Another fruiting crop will appear in the fall. These will be from the new canes. At this point the 1 year ols canes should be removed.

You can also cut them down every year like Tetter mentioned for only the fall crop. Altough more work I prefer both crops.

My raspberries grew horribly for 2 years and I neglected them. Now they are out of control and fruit wonderfully.

MOD

 

[Oliver Buckle]

There are some leaves having problems there, but I see a lot of healthy looking growth as well. The holes will be some sort of leaf cutter, there are flies and solitary bees that do it. Wasps, and birds, may come for your fruit, but not the leaves. Raspberries are pretty vigorous, and should cope with them.
Do you know if they are Summer or Autumn varieties? Summer ones you leave this year's stems to fruit next year, Autumn ones cut down to the ground and they fruit on next year's growth. Either way, when you do it make sure you clean up thoroughly to lessen the chance of problems surviving.