GARDENING : BERRIES MAY WELL GROW ON YOU, THOUGH THEY'RE DIFFICULT TO RAISE.

Byline: Joshua Siskin

No names have associations as evocative as those of plants. Let someone mention a birch tree or a rose, an oak tree, an iris or lily, and you will instantly be taken back to the garden you knew as as child.

The easiest and perhaps the most enjoyable subject on which to write an essay is ``A Plant From My Past and the Thoughts That Go With It.'' I always give this assignment to my students during the first week of class; it usually gets their creative horticultural juices flowing.

Speaking of juices and word associations, I have been looking for the past week at the cover of a shiny new book called ``Berries'' (Firefly Books; $10.95). I doubt if any book title could evoke as many nostalgic, romantic or thirst-quenching thoughts as this one.

Gathering berries is one of the earliest and fondest memories of so many people. And for some mysterious reason - even later on in life - a berry-picking expedition will remain fresh in the mind long after it is past.

Everyone loves berries - be they strawberries, raspberries or blackberries - even if, to a botanist, what often pass for berries are not berries at all, but aggregate fruits. Huh? True berries - such as blueberries and currants - ``are usually globular in shape and have many seeds scattered within soft, fleshy tissue.''

Raspberries and blackberries - and boysenberries, which are a cross between the two - are known as bramble fruits because they grow on brambles, which are defined as ``prickly shrubs or vines.'' If you can create the right growing conditions for them - and protection from our Valley heat is crucial here - they are fairly straightforward in their maintenance. Cut down canes (producing shoots) in the fall; at the same time, thin out fresh canes that will bear fruit the following year. It's a little bit like winter pruning of roses, to which bramble fruits are related. And just as thornless roses have been created, so too will you find prickle-free raspberries and blackberries.

In Los Angeles, growing berries of any description can be a struggle. I have labored at growing strawberries, blackberries and raspberries with little success. I have barely managed to ripen a few fruits here and there.

The raspberry plants convinced me of their health with incredible leaf and stem growth, but I could count on the fingers of one hand their annual production of fruit. The strawberry plants gave a few flowers and fruits, but then shriveled in the heat. Finally, the blackberry plants, no matter where I placed them in the garden, refused to offer up a single fruit.

Local success stories with berries do exist. On their farm at the corner of Hayvenhurst Avenue and Burbank Boulevard in Encino, the Tapia Brothers harvest large quantities of strawberries. They plant in the fall, which gives the plants plenty of time to develop before the period of flower and fruit growth - the following spring and summer - arrives. If you wait until spring to plant, your plants may encounter a debilitating, traumatic heat wave before they have developed much, and their fruiting capacity will be irreparably damaged as a result.

Even if you manage to grow strawberries in the Valley, you may be disappointed with the taste. The cultivars that do well here are not as sweet as those grown near the coast in Oxnard and Ventura.

The history of the cultivated strawberry (Fragaria x Ananassa) is linked with Europe's explorations of the New World. The garden strawberry is a hybrid between two wild berries, one from America's East Coast (Fragaria virginiana) and one from the West Coast (Fragaria chiloensis). These two berries, at different times, were brought back to Europe, where they eventually were cross-pollinated to produce the first commercial strawberries.

There are several currants that are native to Southern California. Most notable is the golden currant (Ribes aureum), which I have seen growing in Franklin Canyon and in the Santa Clarita Valley. It has yellow flowers in spring, which are followed by semisweet berries in summer and fall. The fuchsia-flowering gooseberry (Ribes speciosum) gets its name from its leaves, which become highly fragrant after a rain. All of these plants do best when protected from hot sun, and Catalina perfume is even recommended for dry shade - a condition found under our native oaks, for example.

Tip: If you want to grow strawberries, prepare the soil with plenty of compost and cultivate to a depth of 2 feet. In the process, you will create a raised bed. After planting in the fall, put down a straw mulch upon your strawberry patch.

MEMO: Joshua Siskin's column appears every Saturday. He welcomes questions from readers. Write to him in care of the Daily News Features Department, P.O. Box 4200, Woodland Hills, Calif. 91365-4200. You can also reach him through this on-line mailbox: JoshSiskinaol.com. Topics of general interest will be discussed in the column.