Big old gooseberry bush

[Miss Sarah]

Tucked away in a ocrner of my garden is an old gooseberry bush of at least 15 years of age (more I'm sure). Until now I have never touched it as I've never had the confidence to prune and guarantee survival. It is about 4 feet tall and 5 feet wide. Fruiting has continued but, predictably, on outer lengths of growth; the inner area being increasingly bare or simply leaf growth. I have two willing 'advisers' leaning over my garden wall; ( )one who says to cut the whole thing back, the other who says take semi mature or hard wood cuttings and dig up the old bush as a lost cause I would like to keep the bush now not sure what course to take; any advice

[richard p]

only 15 years old? still life in it yet. the first thing is to decide how big you want it to be, does it need reducing in size? gooseberries can be of two distinct types either all the branches shooting fron ground level or a bushy head on a single main stem, whichever you have the bush should end up as a sort of bowl shape with an open centre,either on the ground or on top of the trunk, this allows good airflow through the bush and access to the fruit for picking. if the bush is too big you will have to shorten the remaining branches. if drastic pruning is require it may be good to do it in stages over a couple of seasons, but in general provided you leave some leaves it will recover eventually from even quite drastic pruning

[John]

Hello Miss Sarah
Don't follow the advice of No 1 'expert?' as cutting back will simply produce a mass of poor vegetative growth. Your gooseberry still has a long and productive life ahead of it so ignore No 2 'expert?'!
Stand back had take a long hard look at it. It probably has a lot of overcrowded shoots with suckers from the base and long weeping branches touching the ground. These are things that you can deal with now.

Cut right out any poorly-placed, crossing and overcrowded branches to leave a good balanced framework of mature branches, with an open centre for easy picking.

Get rid of all the suckers and other growth from the base, ideally as Richard says, you should try to have everything coming from one short main stem. Suckers will regrow but just keep pulling them off.

Finally cut out any weeping, trailing branches. These won't be any use as the weight of the new fruit will just drag them down into the dirt and spoil the fruit.

Give a handful or so of Growmore and a thorough watering and you should get an excellent crop of fruit this year.

These old bushes are pretty tough so don't be afraid of doing some seriously heavy pruning right now.
A bit more work will be needed next winter to finish the job.

John

[Johnboy]

Hi Miss Sarah,
The person you need to contact is Mole as he is an ace where pruning is concerned.
I take what John and Richard have said and I would extend the period that Richard suggests and prune over four years doing a quarter at a time but I have no scientific evidence to back that up. I feel that sometimes people rush in and attack the plant and are far too severe and the poor thing dies, probably from shock. Certainly the sorting out of branches that John says is to me a must.
If the fruit is one that you particularly like you could take some cuttings as an insurance against any thing untoward occurring.
JB.

[Miss Sarah]

A mine of information (as always ) thank you very much! I will take my morning cup of tea outside and have a good close look.

[Mole]

Thanks for the 'big up' JB!

Hi Sarah

I think John has the right idea. Just be aware that pruning it now will knock about the fruits. Maybe you could wait until the fruit on the branches which you want to keep, has been picked?

Your bush is now a 'stooled bush' , you will want to thin out regrowing suckers regularly else it will revert to a thicket. Good luck

Mole

[Miss Sarah]

Thank you Mole! Yes, I'd thought it best to harvest this year's already developing fruit, then will set to later this year. No doubt I will consult you again as the pruning guru