All this rain has provided plenty of excuses for curling up with some great gardening books, but on a rare dry day this week, I got on with tackling a job I’ve been itching to do for months. One of my Japanese Wineberry plants is looking a tad on the unkempt side and is rather overdue for a prune. Old stems need to be cut back to make space for new growth come spring and to make the plant easier to train (and more aesthetically pleasing).
Before seizing the secateurs, note that only about half of the stems need to be pruned! You need to leave the newer, more lush, pink stems and only cut away (from the base of the plant) the old brown woodier stems on which the fruit was borne this summer. As Japanese Wineberries fruit on one year old stems, the fresher pink stems will bear the fruit next summer, and new stems that grow during next year will fruit the summer after that.
Once all the old wood has gone, you can see how many stems you’ll have to provide fruit for next year. You can leave the plant to its own devices, in which case you’ll need a good 2m x 2m space,
or train it to form any number of shapes that you want to experiment with. (If you have too many stems to train, cut away the weaker spindlier stems from the base of your plant.)
Old stems can be cut back anytime after the plant has finished fruiting (about September onwards), and if you haven’t tackled them already, other fruit, such as blackberries and summer fruiting raspberries can be pruned now, again, removing only the older woody stems (about half the bush) and keeping this year’s fresher looking growth to provide fruit for next year.
