Raspberry Pruning

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

Most summer residents are of the opinion that raspberries are almost the most unpretentious shrub in the garden. However, to a greater extent this is a misconception, since it is necessary to prune raspberry bushes every year. By the way, it also happens that the cutting of the bush is carried out even more often. With proper care of this crop, the gardener can expect to receive a rich and bountiful harvest as a result

Do not wait for huge and tasty berries in such raspberry fields, where the owner did not bother to work with a pruner. On neglected and unkempt bushes, berries almost always grow small. Also during harvesting in a raspberry plant where no pruning has been carried out, the gardener will experience inconvenience due to the tight dense foliage and constantly clinging thorny elements.

Pruning raspberries in the spring

In spring, pruning a raspberry bush is not considered the main and most important care action. For the most part, sanitary-type pruning takes place here, or it can also be called an addition to the autumn event. After the last snow lying in the garden has melted, the gardener should examine the entire bush and cut off the dried and dead branches from there, the same should be done with diseased or broken shoots. There are two methods of growing raspberry crops - ordinary and bush. The principle of shrub thinning depends on the choice of one of the methods.

The most important requirement in this case is to leave access to fresh air and bright lighting for bushes with berries. If the gardener has chosen the method of growing crops in rows, then the distance between them should be at least two meters. In one row, the distance between the bushes themselves can be one and a half meters. To thin out raspberries, it is required to destroy old and broken shoots without unnecessary regrets. As a result, about eight to ten shoots remain on one raspberry bush. All excess branches should be cut as close to the soil surface as possible. The pathogen can get into the cut, which eventually remains above the soil, after which the infection will go throughout the plant.

Special principles of pruning in the spring season will allow shrubs to bear fruit throughout the summer in three stages. But for such purposes, the bush itself should be conditionally divided into three different parts, where in the first of them the shoots must be shortened by 15 cm, in the second - exactly by half, in the third - only fifteen centimeters should be left above the soil surface. The longest shoots will be the first to bear fruit, and the type of pruning itself will allow you to enjoy delicious berries until mid-autumn.

Pruning raspberries in the summer

In all the care of raspberry bushes, summer pruning is one of the most important places. In early June, raspberries begin their flowering phase. Just at this moment, it is worth destroying all yellowed leaves and diseased branches. These elements take away the strength from the plant itself, which is needed as a direction for the ripening of large and tasty fruits. Also, diseased shoots can carry the infection through the entire bush. Experienced summer residents and gardeners recommend burning cut shoots, leaves and branches of raspberry bushes, this will become additional protection against viruses and infections.

Also, do not forget about the elimination of the overgrowth, which is located directly on the soil near the bushes. In this case, it is necessary to destroy all shoots that appear within a radius of twenty centimeters from the main stem. If you carry out such a procedure regularly, then as a result, such an operation will always occur without difficulty. In fact, it is very easy to carry out such an action: you need to stick a shovel handle, tilting a little, in order to avoid cutting the roots of young seedlings.

As soon as July comes, the so-called cleaning of the plant from unnecessary shoots will be required. After the harvest is harvested, all shoots that have fulfilled their fertile function are destroyed. For this, the gardener will need a large pruner. Shoots are removed at the root so that the entire aerial part is absent. Such branches usually take a lot of strength from raspberry bushes, and also create shade that is not necessary for it. You should not wait until autumn to carry out this procedure, because the sooner the dead shoots are eliminated, the more the plant will have new strength for development.