I wonder if anyone could advice me how far I should cut back to very healthy and productive gooseberry bushes - we had a brilliant crop from them this year so don't want to go to mad!
We inherited them from the last owner of our allotment, so they haven't been cut back for at least 2 years, so are rather wild (cut myself to ribbos harvesting!!). I read to cut them back to 5 leaves, but this would shrink them to less than half their size, and I'm abit scared!
Any advice would be great, thank you
Hi Leonie.
I would have thought that if your gooseberry is so dense that you are having problems picking the fruit then the best pruning you could give it this year would be to open the plant up.
Remove a few of the central shoots to allow light as well as your hand to get to the centre of the bush. Then remove a few crossing shoots.
To just hit the whole bush without clearing out excess wood would just make the problem worse in the end.
Jona.
I would have thought that if your gooseberry is so dense that you are having problems picking the fruit then the best pruning you could give it this year would be to open the plant up.
Remove a few of the central shoots to allow light as well as your hand to get to the centre of the bush. Then remove a few crossing shoots.
To just hit the whole bush without clearing out excess wood would just make the problem worse in the end.
Jona.