Plant Care

All the plants you have in your garden and also inside the house, should be cared for correctly. This will ensure you get the best displays and long-life from them.

Pruning Soft Fruit

It is very rewarding to be able to pick fruit from your own garden. Soft fruits are a good investment for smaller gardens where there may not be room for fruit trees.

Soft fruits are easy plants to grow and most can be trained to fit in confined or awkward spaces. They are long-lived and high-yielding, provided you prune them annually to replace aging stems and branches with younger, more vigorous growth.

Pruning is straight forward, and can be done in mid-summer or on a fine winter day.

Gooseberries

A gooseberry bush needs regular pruning to keep it from becoming tangled and unhealthy.

You should aim to keep the centre open of the shrub open to air and sunlight, leaving a few, regularly-spaced, main branches.

In winter, prune out dead or diseased stems. Cut back to a young shoot. Thin overcrowded areas and prune drooping stems to an upright sideshoot. Shorten new growth by half to maintain an acceptable size.

In June, shorten new sideshoots to five leaves and trim tips affected by mildew or aphids.