How do you prune fruit bushes? A guide to raspberries, blueberries and gooseberries with David Domoney.

Growing your own berries and currants is very rewarding, delicious harvests of fruit full of flavour and nutrients. Ensuring you get the best out of your fruit harvest means occasional upkeep and maintenance. By doing so regularly, your berry harvest will be more plentiful, and each fruit larger as a result. So, find out the best practices to prune your raspberry, gooseberry, and blueberry bushes.

Predominantly, fruit bush pruning requires the tidying up of dead wood canes and branches.

The AMES Tools Multi-Function Anvil Pruner is well-equipped for this task. Anvil pruners are best for working on dead wood, as they work like a knife on a chopping board. These pruners are ergonomically designed to prevent wrist strain and have an ambidextrous sliding lock for complete inclusivity. Plus, you can adjust the width, to make pruning as comfortable as possible for hands of any size.

How to prune raspberries

There is slightly different guidance depending on whether you have summer-fruiting or autumn-fruiting raspberries. This is because they fruit on different stem types. Summer-fruiting raspberries fruit on floricanes, which are year-old stems (the growth from the previous season). This means you don’t want to prune the year-old stems which haven’t fruited yet. Alternatively, autumn-fruiting berries fruit on primocanes, the current season’s growth.

How to prune summer-fruiting raspberries

As these raspberry varieties fruit on the previous year’s growth, the aim is to remove only the current year’s fruited canes. Cut all the old, woody, fruited stems down to the ground. Seeing as this is old wood, it is best to use an anvil pruner. Do so as soon as harvesting the season’s crop has finished in summer.

Then identify from the remaining young stems which six to eight per plant are the strongest. These will remain, and the others can be cut down to ground level. As these are likely to be live stems, a bypass pruner will be best. For the remaining stems, tie them into your horizontal wires to begin training them, about 8-10cm apart. When doing so, if you find the stems are taller than your top wire, loop it over and tie it in for now. These can be cut back in February.

How to prune autumn-fruiting raspberries

Pruning autumn-fruiting raspberries is much simpler than summer-fruiting raspberries. As they grow on the current seasons’ stems, everything can be cut down to ground level in February. Don’t worry; new stems will emerge that spring to fruit in the autumn.

Once summer comes around, review your autumn-fruiting raspberries again. If they are overcrowded or are becoming congested, it may be worth thinning them out. Identify the weakest stems and remove them. The stems that remain should be spaced around 10cm apart.

How to prune gooseberries

The pruning for gooseberries can vary depending on how you’ve chosen to grow them. For example, they can be grown in bush form or trained as standards or cordons. The pruning technique, therefore, slightly differentiates to suit the shape.

How to prune gooseberry bushes

Early pruning of gooseberry bushes serves to create a goblet shape, keeping the structure open for good air movement. A year after planting, choose the five strongest, well-spaced shoots, cut them back by half to three-quarters, and remove any others.

In the late winter of the second year, continue to cultivate a goblet shape. You should aim for eight strong, outward-growing shoots for the main branches. Shorten all of the others by about a quarter. With mature gooseberry bushes, each year or other year, remove a few unproductive branches and low-growing branches too.

For spur pruning in winter, prune back the last year’s growth to three or four buds, including side shoots to two buds. In the summer, between June and July, shorten the current season’s side-shoot growth back to five leaves.

How to prune gooseberry standards

A standard shape looks like a lollipop, with a long stem or trunk supported by a strong stake. The method of pruning is similar to bush pruning, both requiring an open-centred goblet shape. Just ensure the head of branches doesn’t get overcrowded by pruning regularly.

Also, keep an eye out for ‘suckers’. Standards are a fruiting cultivar grafted onto a different plant, suckers growing from the lower part of the plant. These suckers aren’t compatible with the head of the plant, so should be removed to avoid drawing energy from the plant.

How to prune gooseberry cordons/fans

Cordons or fans are compactly grown gooseberries which are trained to grow along horizontal wires. For the first winter after planting, remove the previous season’s growth on the main shoot by a quarter to a half of its length. Ensure the main stem is tied to a bamboo cane support, along horizontal wires. All other shoots can be pruned back to one bud.

For the first summer onwards, once any side shoots have produced up to eight leaves, they can be pruned back to five. Any regrowth or other developing side shoots can be pruned back to one leaf each.

From the second winter onwards, prune the main vertical stem by a quarter, or up to a half if that season’s growth has been weak. Cut above a bud on the opposite side to the previous year’s cut to ensure it grows straight up. If your gooseberry has already reached your preferred height, prune back to one bud each year. The side shoots can now be cut back to one or two buds and ensure the base of the main stem is free of shoots.

How to prune blueberries

Pruning for blueberries is straightforward. For the first couple of years, pruning is only required if there are any crossing or unwanted branches. After this, prune every year, ideally between late February and early March. This is a particularly good time, as fruit buds can be more easily distinguished from leaf buds.

For a mature blueberry bush, the stems should comprise the following:

• A third of old stems.
• A third of middle-aged stems.
• A third of young stems.

When pruning, remove any diseased, dead, damaged, weak, or unproductive stems. Also, identify any twiggy growth from the ends of branches which fruited last year, and cut back to a low-down bud facing upwards, or a branch. Finally, remove up to a quarter of the oldest and thickest stems, to encourage new growth to keep the plant productive. These can be cut at the base of a mature plant, or above a younger strong shoot.

Maintaining a regular pruning routine with your fruit bushes will keep them healthy and productive. By using Ames Tools’ Multi-Function Anvil Pruner on the old growth, your plant will continue growing and fruiting for years to come.

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