Fruit Bush Cuttings

[strider]

I have been offered a cutting from a Red gooseberry bush does any one know I would take the cutting and then root it, all advice gratefully received.

[andrewo]

You can take a gooseberry cutting by layering it, this means you take a new pliable shoot (no need to get the bush drunk) and pin it to the earth, remove any thorns that will be beneath soil level, cover over the shoot at the base with good mix of soil and compost. In a few months you will have a healthy bush that you can cut free from the main bush - this is the way I have always done it and I haven't lost any. Takes time but the results are rewarding.

[ChrisB]

Is it possible to actually take cuttings and get them to root?

The reason I ask is that my Dad is digging up one of his josta bushes, and if he hasn't already done it and disposed of it I was going to put a thread on here offering them to anyone that is interested

[pigletwillie]

Gooseberry and all of the bush fruits are so easy to propogate. Just cut off well ripened wood about 8" long, strip off the lower half's leaves and either plunge into a suitable spot in the garden to grow on or do as I do which is to put a few around the edges of a big pot filled with either good soil or a soil based compost and wait for them to shoot next year. When they are growing well tip out the pot and either pot on or again plant into a nursery bedfor a second year. By the autumn of the second year they will be ready to permanently plant out.

I take a fair few cuttings of currants, blueberries and goosebery bushes most autumns and as they are so eager to grow the success rate is very nearly 100%.

[nick the grief]

You can take Hardwood cuttings & put them in pots of gritty compost & keep them in a cold frame or somewhere sheltered & they'll root by next spring.

Same as the thread on Grapevines. here's the piccy to jog your memory.



Straight cut at the bottom, remove the buds that are going in the compost (they'll only rot) & a slanting cut at the top (sheds moisture)

You can put them in a slit trench with sharp sand at the base but I prefer the pot method.

[ChrisB]

Thanks for the replies. Just hope my dad hasn't got rid of the bush already