BLACKCURRANT BUSHES

[invisiblepiper]

Hi - I bought two blackcurrant bushes in a 'tube'. They have flowering buds already - shop heat I guess.
Do I allow them to flower/fruit in their first year - or nip the buds off to establish the plants?
They go into the ground tomorrow - weather permitting.
Piper

[Clara]

When you say they are in a tube, do you mean they are bushes or just a stick with a few side shoots. If the latter I'd definitely say leave them alone. The only important thing that I know about blackcurrants is that you ought to plant them so that the soil comes above an inch or so above the root line (or where the soil is in the pot) to encourage more shoots.

[Odsox]

I would leave them for a few days as I think you have some pretty wintry weather this week up your way.
Give the roots a good soak and put them in a cool light room if you have one.
I think I would be incline to pinch off the flowers so that they concentrate on making roots rather than fruit, all the better for next year.

[Millymollymandy]

Then swot up on the pruning and don't prune them like redcurrants, which I did. Shall report back later this year as to whether they fruited well or not!

[invisiblepiper]

Sticks with shoots Clara!
Willwatch for the weather Odsox.
MMM -I don't know a thing about pruning!
Cheers

[Odsox]

Pruning blackcurrants is easy, do nothing for a year ... then next winter remove a third of the branches at ground level and carry on like that every winter. The first winter it might only be one or two shoots, but after that you should have built up a sizeable bush.
Blackcurrants fruit better on new one year old wood, so the idea is to keep cutting the old ones out and getting new ones in their place.
You will easily see which is old wood and which is new by the colour of the bark, so don't worry about cutting out the wrong ones.

[Millymollymandy]

But what do you do when you've inadvertently turned yours into a bush like your redcurrants?

Yet the redcurrants keep throwing up new canes from under the ground, which according to the text book they're not supposed to do, they should be a neat little bush with one central trunk, not a multistemmed mishmash (and I did prune them by the book). I do love text books. Anyway I managed to get about 7kg off two bushes of redcurrants!

[dave45]

I got half a dozen such "bushes" in cardboard tubes from Poundland in December ! I extracted them all from their plastic and left them with their feet in a bucket of water for a week or two before planting them out. I intend to do nothing at all for the first year. On my previous bushes I did nothing for the second year either and got a HUGE crop, but the bushes are now huge and straggly. I've been meaning to prune them for weeks but not yet done it.. I presume I am not too late?

[dave45]

MMM -I don't know a thing about pruning!
Cheers

I have the DK/RHS book "Pruning and Training", and am VERY impressed with it - excellent diagrams. But I am a beginner at pruning too - do I have the right reference book?

[Millymollymandy]

What does DK stand for? My book is a RHS book on fruit and has excellent diagrams too - the only problem being that fruit bushes and trees don't always grow like they show in the diagrams..... If you're starting with a new young fruit tree that needs formative pruning though I think it is easier to follow the instructions in a book like that. It's when you inherit overgrown older ones that it gets more complicated! I am still very much on a learning curve with fruit pruning be it currants or apples so my book gets used a lot!

[Odsox]

But what do you do when you've inadvertently turned yours into a bush like your redcurrants?

It doesn't really matter, you can still cut out one third of the branches every year.
If you really want a "proper" blackcurrant bush you could always earth them up like potatoes so that the "trunk" is below ground level.

The only trouble with books is the plants can't read and so they just do what they feel like doing and NOT necessarily what some bod who writes RHS books thinks they ought to.
If it's any consolation one of my gooseberry bushes thinks it's a currant and throwing up suckers everywhere.

p.s. MMM, I think DK is the publisher ... Dorling Kindersley Ltd

[Millymollymandy]

Thanks Odsox, I didn't do any pruning to the b.currants this winter once I'd reread my book and realised my mistake the previous year. They have a couple of new canes coming out from the ground which can develop for next year and I'll just play it by ear and see how it goes. I'm sure I'll get fruit anyway - had a small amount last year but this is only their 2nd year (or 3rd if we count the first little twig year).

[Annpan]

I put in some black and red currants in October.... can someone enlighten me...

Do black grow on new canes from ground level every year, a bit like raspberries? and do Red ones grow on a shrub type bush? maybe I'll need to get a book on pruning too

[Odsox]

Blackcurrants fruit best on one year old wood Ann, so the shoots that grow this year will produce fruit next year.
Redcurrants are pretty much the same although they will go on producing well on older wood as well.

Conventionally, blackcurrants are grown as a "stool", that is lots of shoots coming out of the ground like raspberries.
Red & White currants and Gooseberries are grown on a "leg" or a mini trunk just like a bonsai tree.
But ... really it doesn't matter too much either way, except maybe gooseberries would be a right pain to pick otherwise (literally)
Prune your currants like I said above ... cut out a third of the old wood every year, that way you replace the shoots every 3 years .. but leave it until next winter to start.
Hope that makes sense.

[Annpan]

ummm... kind of.... than-you muchly. They are currently about 4 inch tall sticks so I am not too worried