I can only comment on the Chester. It isn't aggressive in terms of putting out millions of suckers like many raspberries do. I've had two plants for about 5 years and they put up new canes right beside the old ones, only one plant has put up one sucker away from the main plant in that whole time, and that was only about 3 feet away.

They are aggressive growers though, and you can expect canes to reach 10' long (some say even longer) after the plant is established. However, for me at least, these trail on either side of the crown, so as to form a line of canes rather than a circle of canes. That may be because my plants are trained along a trellis, but that's pretty easy to do. They aren't hardy in my zone so I have to protect them over winter, but you should fare much better.

After three years of cutting it down and even smothering it, chester still comes back.... Delicious blackberry though

Don how are you protecting them ?

I've tried straw covered in burlap, which works well, but then I have to deal with all the fluffed up straw in the spring plus there seemed to be a lot of grass seed contaminating the bale. So my usual method is a good cover of leaves from the trees in my yard, covered in burlap to prevent them from blowing around. They pack down by about half over winter but seem to work well. Then I deal with them in the spring by composting some and bagging/trashing the extras. I try to train the canes to run horizonatally during the summer, then I pin the ends down with bricks in the fall so the leaves can cover them easily.

@Don - Thanks. That's really helpful. I'd like to hope I could manage the vines well enough on a trellis that my neighbor is happy with me and doesn't see her lawn covered in blackberry shoots.
@canadianplant - Glad to hear the blackberries are tasty. I'm OK with a plant that's extremely hardy. But, how does it spread for you? Should I be concerned from your experience? I'm wondering if the plant may perform differently in different zones. Not sure yours.

I'm also still interested in other opinions, plus any insights anyone might have on Latham raspberries. Thanks again!

Thanks for the info , I have a couple I think are chesters and was going to trellis them but was afraid they would winter kill . I am new to blackberries so this is all learning for me

The raspberries might give you a problem , red raspberries like to run

Latham was different for me, like a trailing raspberry. I had it in a remesh tomato cage and never had suckers. Seems like the way it grew it would tip root like a black rasp

Thanks. I think I might plant the blackberry next to one fence and train and prune it, hoping it won't be a problem. The Latham I will put a few feet away from the other fence and also prune and watch it. I hope it works out :) It really is so helpful to hear from people who have had actual experience with the plants. Looking online I had a hard time finding specific information, but did read quite a few horror stories about brambles gone awry, especially wild blackberries. I was hoping Chester was different.

Take this for what it's worth. It's not how most people would have done it...

I planted 3 Chester, 3 Triple Crown, and 3 Illini (not thornless) in Spring 2010. Then I pretty much ignored them. There's a corner of my property that I devoted to berries of all kinds at that time. I built a barn that summer, then a house the next year, and my priorities really weren't with the berries.

Fast forward to 2014. when the weather broke, I mowed through the mass of tangled brambles trying to establish rows again as they had originally been done. I had forgotten that I planted thornless blackberries.

I don't know whether it's the Chesters or the Triple Crowns or if it's both, but I have thornless blackberry canes all over the place. Mostly in the row in which I wanted them, so that's good. But they're at least 12 feet from where I planted them. And they're all delicious! I'm picking more than a gallon every 3 days. I'm going to try to refurbish the blackberry portion of the patch this fall after they go dormant. trellises, transplants, etc. I've been tying ribbons on the ones to dig up. I can't see the crowns in the mass of tangled brambles. I just hope I don't kill them all trying to get them in order.

All that said, I believe if you tend to them and don't do what I did, you won't have any problems.

Let me explain a bit better then my drive by post lol.

I planted them a few years ago. The plant was maybe a foot tall my the end of the year. The following year it pushed canes over 10 feet because I didnt prune them, yet they still managed to produce. The area they are in was too small and I had more uses so I ripped the plant out and mulched the area with bricks and black plastic. It still managed to spread beyond the three feet and came up along the foundation and in the lawn. In my experience they spread just about as aggressively as raspberries.

I will say it seems the less you do the better behaved they are. They are only coming up in a small patch, which I am going to dig up and plant in more shade to try and control them a bit.

The only reason they survive up here is because of deep snow cover. IF you dont get snow you may want to mulch the canes for the winter. They are super flexible.

Lastly, even unpruned I managed to get about half a quart off of a young plant. With more care I could have doubled production.