removing a ribes

[bethduckie]

I have (had) a large, overgrown flowering currant on my allotment. The lottie isn't huge, and it was taking up far too much room, and obviously it diesn't give fruit or anything so it had to go.

I've chopped off all the branches but not sure what to do now, shall I just try to dig as much root up as I can? Obviously if I leave it it will try to grow back and I don't want it to do that!

[Aberdeenplotter]

these things can be cut down to ground level and still grow back. No problem if you're happy to keep cutting back but best to take out completely if you can.

[FB.]

If possible, I would have waited until early summer (especially during a dry spell) - just as its reserves had been used to make new leaves for gathering sunlight - and then hacked it down, followed by removal of any roots that I could dig out, plus removal immediately of any shoots ("suckers") which happen to make an appearance after several weeks.

The remaining roots would then have had very little reserves left to fight me back and the dry spell would have limited their ability to gather more nutrients (roots need nutrients to be dissolved in water before they can be absorbed).

By removing the top (or part of the top) of a plant while it is dormant, all the reserves are still in the roots - and they'll come back at you like a monster because lots of roots and only a few shoots means a lot of sap needs to be vented out quickly.

I once dug-out, in winter, a wild rose bush because it had been badly damaged and was badly shaped. The same bush came back 18 months later from an undetected piece of root, deep down, about a foot away from its original position. Fortunately the regenerated plant was better located and able to be trained this time, so it has been allowed to re-grow!
I suspect that it "came back from the dead" because the soil is very poor and plants tend to develop huge root systems around 2-3x the size of what's above ground.