Pruning soft fruits at the right time is essential to keeping plants productive. Winter Pruning in Your Garden – Fruit Trees and Fruit Bushes. Opinions differ as to how deep to plant red currant bushes. Like most flowering shrubs, pruning serves to increase foliage density and enhance flowering year after year. Pruning flowering currant after planting . Follow our guide to get the most out of your fruit bushes and vines. Most of the problems associated with lack of fruit on red currant bushes is owing to the wrong method of pruning. The Green Mound Alpine Currant is a nice, hardy selection that stays dense and rounded. Pruning Cordon Currants. Plants shipped with great care! Planting is simply digging a hole slightly larger than the root spread, placing the plant in the hole and in-filling with earth. How to prune: A living hedge — versus a financial hedge, which is … Initially the leaders [main stems] can be shortened by up to one third to any outwardly facing bud. Redcurrants, ... Red and Whitecurrants should always be pruned back to an outward facing bud, as is normal for most plants. Whilst the Ribes do not actually need pruning to flower well, if the shrub has been planted in the wrong place and outgrown its position, then you will need to prune the Ribes to a/ get it back into proportion, and b/ regular pruning to ensure that it does not again outgrow its position. As can be imagined, a bush that needs it’s old stems removing regularly to keep it invigorated and encourage a fresh supply of fruiting wood, isn’t really going to be much use as a cordon. The blackcurrant is seldom grown as a cordon because the pruning and growing method is different to other currants and gooseberries. Pruning fruit bushes can seem complicated but is, in fact, very simple. After that, it may lose its vigor, even if you prune it diligently. Their fruit are so flavorsome and require so little work that I think every garden should include a currant bush. Harvesting Blackcurrants: You'll see them darken and taste sweet when they are ripe, use scissors to cut them off. How to care for blackcurrants. Left unpruned, alpine currants grow up to 5 feet tall and 7 feet wide, but the shrubs respond well to heavy pruning and shearing. Birds like to eat the developing buds of currant bushes, so protect plants in the winter. Cut back the rest of the branches to approximately half of their length, cut at an upward facing bud to encourage growth upwards rather than outwards. Preparation. For both Red and Black. Prune out wood in the centre – for light and airflow. In winter: – prune pip fruits such as apples, but not if they are a trained form such as espalier; do not prune stone fruits, which include cherries, plums and nuts; bush fruits – currants and gooseberries – are winter pruned unless they have been grown as a trained form Don't prune for the first year of their life. You may want to rejuvenate the bush. Pruning in April-May. If you find pruning fruit bushes difficult you’re certainly not alone. Some shrubs produce flowers on “new growth” – stems emerge in spring and summer, and flower buds are set and bloom later in the season. Pick the fruit as and when it ripens. With minimum effort you’ll have a reliable and abundant crop, and just one or two bushes will provide pounds of juicy fruits for puddings, jellies and sauces. The reason for this is you want the energy of the shrub go into the roots and not into the foliage. Mulch with organic matter in spring and apply a general fertilizer suitable for shrubs. The Alpine Currant is a great dwarf, compact, dense shrub, growing around 3-4 feet high. Redcurrants and whitecurrants do not need the hard pruning that is recommended for Blackcurants and a framework of growth is left in place. How to prune gooseberry bushes and currant bushes. This plant has some cultivated varieties. After planting, prune the bush right back. Leave 1.8m (5ft) between currant bushes. The weather should be rather mild and dry, with no risk of freezing. On these plants, pruning needs to take place before flower buds are set. I am not sure if alpine currant falls into that category. Prune out branches growing low to ground. Alpine currant Ribes alpinum) is a dense shrub so make sure to remove its interior bulk to allow light into the center of the shrub. Pruning Ribes. The thing you need to remember is no matter how badly you prune you will not ruin your fruit plant beyond repair and can … First cut away all dead, diseased and intersectiong branches. Get the pruning right at the right time and red currants are hardly ever a problem. Best offers for your Garden - https://amzn.to/2InnD0w ----- How to Prune Alpine Currant Hedges. Many people are nervous about the process so leave fruit unpruned which will result in progressively lower yields as the plant ages. Emerging early, the foliage changes to dark green in summer with an attractive gloss on the leaf uppersides, before warming up to yellow in the fall. Planting & Care for Deciduous Shrub – Currant. Blackcurrant bushes need plenty of watering and feeding – particularly if container grown. This is done by selecting one third of the branches, divided evenly over the bush, and cutting these back to a height of about 50 cm. Initial Pruning for Redcurrants. Extremely winter hardy, Ribes alpinum (Alpine Currant) is a compact, mound-forming, deciduous shrub with bright green, trilobed leaves in spring. Prune in winter, creating an open bowl shape that deters sawflies and helps ripen fruit. "Happily ever after" with a blackcurrant bush should be about 15 years before they should be replaced. Alpine currant (Ribes alpinum) is a hardy, low mounded shrub commonly used as a hedge.Plants are tolerant of full sun to full shade. Pruning will do this. The diagrams in books may look very straight-forward, but it’s a whole different story when faced with your own, undiagrammatical, pruning challenge. Then water the shrubs well this summer and avoid additional stress. Rejuvenation is a method of pruning old shrubs that have become too large. The Ribes flower early in the Spring - just after Forsythia. Hedges are easily kept at 3-foot heights. Some shrubs can push new growth from the base following severe pruning. Young growth is susceptible to attack by aphids. I would prune the dead branches back to a living bud, if possible. Remove branches that are tangled together. Flowering currant can live for two to three decades. Therefore, cut back some of the old wood each year to stimulate fresh growth and remove any dead or diseased stems. Prune out the short, spindly, dead or damaged wood – as close to the base of the currant as practical. Prune away any crossing shoots or branches. Very low maintenance with no ornamental appeal than its dense green foliage. How to grow blackcurrants – pruning blackcurrants. PRUNING BLACKCURRANT BUSHES Pruning of blackcurrant bushes is very simple. Black currant, red currant and white currant bushes all yield copious clusters of berries which are rich in vitamin C as well as having a high pectin content which makes them ideal for jams and jellies. This shrubs is excellent in mass or foundation planting in the landscape. Other shrubs produce flowers on the former year’s growth, aka “old growth”. This encourages more than one central stem to grow and seems to result in a more healthy bush. Cut the new plants back to about half their height. To open the bushes up to light for ripening and airflow for health. Alpine Currant (Ribes alpinum) is the shrub you need when you want a super-hardy, totally dependable, tough-as-nails, doesn't care about the soil or light or air kind of shrub. Pests and Diseases. Ideal for situations of limited space, Cordons can be trained into a single, double or triple stem plant. The right time to prune a red currant bush is towards the end of winter, ideally during the months of February-March. This type of pruning is carried out over a 2-3 year period making sure to remove only 1/3 of the old growth each year. Our experience is that that they are best planted 5cm / 2in deeper than they are in the pot. Red Currants are pruned differently to Black Currants. It is easy to maintain the desired size on these small bushes. If you have a large garden, a fruit cage is ideal, alternatively, cover plants in bud with anti-bird mesh. Depending on the condition of the plant, various pruning methods can be applied. However, do this as soon as possible. There are inconspicuous yellow flowers in June. Flowering currant can be pruned after flowering in April or May. They can be pruned any time of the year and tolerate even a heavy pruning. First clear the center of the shrub, because having light penetrate to the center is crucial. There are a number of cultivars of this currant shrub available. The flowers are greenish-yellow but ornamentally insignificant. Whether you plant this as a specimen or better yet, as a hedge, Alpine Currant will work for you. First pruning of flowering currant. But at this point, with the photo of the shrub with the dead center, you can see how it recovers. It leafs out early, but retains its foliage all summer long and grows in sun or shade. November or December are best, although it can be done right up to the end of February, whenever the soil isn’t frozen solid or waterlogged. Needs to be pruned annually to encourage strong, healthy shoots and improve flowering. Plant bare-root currants in winter. Watch this expert RHS video on pruning soft fruits including redcurrants, white currants and gooseberries when growing in a restricted space ‘Aureum’ is an older cultivar that does best in a full sun exposure. Leaves turns a slight yellow color in fall. How we ship container plants. The time to prune is when they are dormant, mid-winter to early February is a good time for this garden job. This plant will spread to about 2-3' and may get a little taller. Alpine currant's natural upright, oval shape lends itself well to classic hedge forms. Pruning red and white currants Initial Pruning – Remove any suckers from the base of the plant. The versatile shrub prefers moist, well-drained soil but adapts to dry, compacted landscapes and drought. Alpine currant shrubs are susceptible to aphid infestation. In spring, feed with pelleted chicken manure or other high potash fertiliser, and add a thick mulch. It gets a little fuller when it leafs out in spring. Pruning should be quite drastic. 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