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.

Grapevines

Grapevines are vigorous climbers, so you will need to prune it on a regular basis to keep it under control. Training methods are based around one or more permanent stems from which fruiting sideshoots arise annually.

In mid-winter, prune strong sideshoots back to one bud, others to two. Cut back developing main stems by half their new growth and established ones to a single, new bud.

In summer, shorten non-flowering laterals to four or five leaves and sideshoots growing from these to one leaf. Prune laterals carrying flowers to two leaves beyond the first truss and remove any extra trusses.