How to Prune Berries

Views: 14038 | Last Update: 2009-02-04
How to Prune Berries - Provided by eHow
Prune berry plants and vines by cutting branches in an odd, then even arrangement, trimming the bottom branches and thinning out all but the main branches. Trim berries in the fall or winter with advice from a sustainable gardener in this free video on... View Video Transcript

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Yolanda Vanveen

Video Transcript

Hi, this is Yolanda Vanveen and in this segment we're going to talk about how to prune berries. There's so many different types of berries that you can grow, but you really need to train them to grow on to a fence, or on to a vine, or a piece of rope. Anywhere where you can get them to grow evenly and produce the most fruit. And there's some rules that you should follow. So the goal with berries is to get a lot of growth, and so when you're pruning them back you should let them come up and grow and then take two main starts and put them up onto a wire or a fence in any way. And then when you're trimming back the different growth you should cut them in an odd, even kind of arrangement, so you leave on a little bit longer, one a little bit shorter, one longer, one shorter, one longer, one shorter. And you never want to trim out more than one third at one time. And the little suckers on the bottom too. It always helps to cut those out because then more energy will come to the top and you'll get lots more fruit. A lot of berries are grown in a two tier system as well. You can do one tier or two tier it's up to you. If you want a lot of fruit or if it's more established you can always add another tier later as they grow taller. So when there's a two tier system just let the main branch grow tall and then you thin it out by taking two main stems and tying them onto the wire or rope or anything that you want. And then any branches that come off the top, you want to trim them down. And again you never want to trim more than one third of the plant at one time, and you want to prune when they're not growing and not producing fruit. So the best time to prune is in the fall or the middle of winter when they're not growing too much. And then that way the next year they'll grow very full and it will force the plant to give you even more berries and you'll have a more successful season the next year. So there's many ways to prune berries but the trick is never to cut more than one third of the plant at any one time and to grow them when they're not producing their actual berries. So after they're done and when they're dormant is the best time prune any berry and then that way you get lots, and lots, and lots of fruit the next summer.