Gooseberry bushes alive alive-oh, or not...

[Snoop Puss]

Hi all. A friend of ours has asked us to move his two gooseberry bushes onto our land for assorted reasons. At the moment, they look like a bundle of dead sticks. Is that what you'd expect or could they really be dead? Is this a bad time of year to move them or is it much of a muchness?

I've never had any fruit bushes. Anything I should know about soil or pruning?

Thanks for any advice.

[Jay-ell]

Gooseberries are sturdy fellows, they should be OK. They may not look much at the moment as they may not have broken dormancy but they should do soon. When they're dormant is the best time to move them.

There's different forms you can prune a gooseberry bush into - an open goblet is the most common. In this form you're trying to shape the bush so that air can circulate freely and that the fruit will be accessible without having to don plate mail vambraces.

How much space have you given the bushes?

Birds often like to pick off the unopened buds, so a lot of advice will be don't start pruning until after the buds have burst so you can prune back to an appropriate bud.

Do you have any photos ?

[BUFFS]

depending on the size of the rootball you lift them with, you will be able to shift them now, with a good root system, kept intact, the bushes will not even realise they have been moved. if you lose a lot of the roots , trim the stems and cut them to about 10ins , shoved three quarters deep into the soil you will have some new plants as they take ..

[NickG]

I have inherited 3 bushes and they all look like bare twigs so you should be okay

[sparrow100]

For soil prep, if you're moving them just before they wake up, I'd make it nice and cosy, with lots of rotted manure if you can. And some mycorhizal fungi if you have any lying about. They are very tough, but I would still try to make them happy. As has been said, keep as much of the rootball now as possible so that the core root system is intact. That's v unwieldy if your soil's heavy.

Personally I wouldn't prune them at this point unless there are lots of crossing branches. I'd leave it till June/July and any severe pruning till winter. They should be at the point of breaking bud now and the shock of moving them will be enough to cope with. I would probably pick off most of the flowers too, to give the plant more focus on regrowing roots.

I shifted mine in February, so they had a good month or more to get used to where they were before waking up. The first year I had hardly any fruit - last year I had 5kg from 4 bushes and this year they should be in full swing.

Edit to add: the only one I managed to kill was in a very, very wet place. So avoid those.

[Snoop Puss]

Thanks for the advice, guys. Bit relieved that they might not be dead after all. At the moment they're in awful soil. In fact, it probably barely qualifies as soil, to be honest. I have no idea how much of a rootball I'll be able to extract, it's so hard. Sorry about having no photos. I know they help. I'll see if I can get some later.

I'll be moving them into good soil and can provide plenty of muck. No mycorrhizal fungi, I'm afraid. They can have pretty well as much space as they want, jay-ell. Somewhere online suggested a metre apart. Does that sound about right? Or would more be better?

At the moment, they look like three or four bare upright sticks. So pruning might not be required. I'll take your advice of picking off the buds, sparrow.

Like the idea of getting more plants off them, BUFFS. If the plants remain more or less intact, I might leave that till next year.

Edited to add: vambraces - a word I'd never heard before. Thanks, jay-ell. I'm a translator and words like that often come in very handy!

[Jay-ell]

Don't pick off the leaf buds - just the flowers to give the plants a chance of getting their roots down and recovering this year without having to produce a crop (I know - it's sooo hard to do but the bushes will be better next year for it).

I think 1 meter should be OK. I have mine closer but I'm training them to triple cordons to form a hedge. - this give a smaller crop per bush but they're planted a lot closer.

[Snoop Puss]

Thanks, Jay-ell. Will pick off the flowers, not leaf buds. I love gooseberries, but quite happy to give the plants a chance. Goosegog crumble in 2018 sounds all right to me!

[sparrow100]

I have mine about a metre apart too, but they are forming up into a hedge. You might want to give them a bit more space - they can easily extend out 3-4ft despite regular pruning.

I wouldn't worry about too big a rootball - just enough so that they have something. On looking back, I also barerooted 2 red gooseberries at this time last year, to get them out of the horsetail infested area. They survived and are going bonkers in the pots they are still in (MFBs). (https://mudandgluts.com/2016/03/20/n...day-of-spring/)

And Jay-ell's right, I meant to pick off the flowers when they were out and dangling about, not the buds.

[Snoop Puss]

Great advice, sparrow. They can have as much space as they like. so I'll stick them a few metres apart. Nothing like being optimistic that they'll grow huge. I'm fortunate in having more space than I know what to do with. Soft fruit bushes sound like a good way to fill at least some of it. I'll think more on that for next autumn.

You were clear about removing flowers. It was me that wasn't in my reply.

Thanks to the link to your blog. I read it but have trouble commenting for some reason.

[sparrow100]

Thanks to the link to your blog. I read it but have trouble commenting for some reason.

I think it's an old post and I stopped comments after a certain amount of time. I had a spate of spammers on the older posts and limiting the time comments can go on seemed to stop it.

[Snoop Puss]

Just to report back, both bushes are now in their new home, 3 metres apart. One had relatively healthy roots but the other had a totally feeble rootball as it was wrapped around by couch grass roots. Not sure it will survive, but it wouldn't have done well where it was either.

So, many thanks everyone.