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.
Growing small fruits is not only a fun gardening adventure but a delicious one too. We had some raspberries from the freezer yesterday.
Hi Judy, I’m very envious of your frozen raspberries. I think Japanese Wineberries should freeze equally well and am now writing note to self to be more organised next summer so we can have lovely berries for the festive season next year too. Merry christmas! Naomi
Glad to see you got a chance to get out. The rain is incessant here and really starting to annoy me. 😦 Loving the neat and tidy wineberry after you’ve tackled it. Have a great Christmas Naomi. Looking forward to seeing you in the New Year 🙂
Merry Christmas Louise. Looking forward to meeting in 2013. V.best Naomi
The wineberries look really nice. I noticed that in one of the comments on the linked article someone mentioned growing goji berries, did you grow those this year too? I never really know when to prune anything, I just take my chances so this is a very useful post. Hope you had a good Christmas and best wishes for 2013 : )
Hi Anna, Pruning can be confusing if you’re not sure where to begin and a bit counter-intuitive at times too.I often find new clients complain of (summer) raspberries that have never fruited, as they cut All the canes back in spring and consequently remove the stems which should have fruited that year. The RHS Pruning and Training Book (about £14.00) is a really useful tome, keeping instructions as simple and straightforward as possible and one I use again and again. Had a lovely Christmas and I hope you did too and I’m itching for a non-rainy day to get clearing and mulching a few beds before some bare-rooted plants arrive in January. Thanks for your comments and hope you have a very good growing year in 2013. V.best Naomi
P.s. I didn’t grow Goji berries as on further reading, not many people seemed to enjoy the taste. Might have a go at Fuchsias this year as their berries are meant to be tasty, but not sure if I can squeeze a plant in and if it will produce enough fruit to earn its space in the garden. More research and thought needed there!
[…] plant produced fruit on this year (about half of the canes) anytime from now until late winter. Here’s a post about pruning them. Be careful not to prune the new pink canes though, as these are the canes which will provide fruit […]