Is this normal?

Hi,
i wonder if anyone has any idea about goosberry plants. At the moment its looking pretty dead, ive scraped the stem and its definatly alive but it doesnt even look like its goin to bud/flower this year, its approx 4 years old, and fruited the first 2 years, last year i pruned it ( i have absolutly no idea what should be cut and where or when..) and i had no fruit but was hoping for some again this year.
I dont know if ive ruined it now, how long would i have to wait? my strawberrys are flowering my blueberrys have got green berrys on them and my fruit trees are in various staes of flowering and fruit begining.
Any ideas anyone
Thanks
Gill

 

Don't grow gooseberries myself but my Dad used to. I do recall that gooseberry sawfly would strip every single leaf off the plants leaving them looking decidedly 'dead' and as I understand it, birds are very partial to a bit of gooseberry bud too which is why you often see bushes draped in attractive net curtaining from quite early in the year!

It could be that either or both of the above are to blame, but it could also be that in pruning your goosegogs you've carefully removed what may have been the fruiting wood (something a lot of us have done at some point), so you may have to wait a bit for it to re-grow.

Take a look at this - http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/basics/techniques/growfruitandveg_growinggooseberries1.shtml
and/or this
http://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/profile.aspx?PID=332#section2

Both give information on looking after gooseberry bushes which may help in the future.

 

Hi Fedgetsmum, thanks for the info, over the past few years ive experienced the sawfly, the bush just looses all its leaves. so i dont think this is my problem also the little buds are on the bush just waiting to come out, so im sure birds arent the problem either.
So im hoping then that is is a case of overpruning and i will wait another year before i make my decision on what to do with it them.
thanks so much
Gill

 

Is it in the ground or in a container?

If its in a container, could it be starving?

I've got a goosegog bush that took a pummelling one year. It was caterpillars. Stripped it bare. They were so small and camoflaged I'd be staring closely looking for ages, thinking I'd picked them all off, then I'd spot one, then realise I was looking at hundreds. Won't be caterpillars this time of year though, how long has it been bare?

After mine got almost wipedout, I gave up on it and stuck it in a corner out the way. It did nothing at all for a full year (literally no green growth at all), but then after a year off, presumably to regain its strength, its started to come back. Last year it put some green growth on. This year it looks almost back on track.

 

hi Clueless,
it's in a container, i had my garden patiod when kids were small now the majority of my fruit plants are all in containers. Though last year i did reclaim the garden under where i moved my shed from and made a small wild flower garden for bees its only about 3.5m x2m. If it warrented it do you think it might fare better there?

 

I do think goosegogs, and indeed most shrubs, are happier in open ground where they can send their roots wherever they see fit.

The trouble with containers, and I guess this is the reason why I have little luck with them, is that its entirely up to you to make sure the soil is right for the plant. In open ground, the plant will send roots off to find what it needs. In a container it has to find exactly what it needs in a much smaller volume of soil than would naturally be the case. I for one usually struggle to get it just right, and so my plants in containers usually don't do as well as those I put in open ground.

 

hi, loofah,
i spent the day in the garden yesterday and repotted my goosberry back in the pot, i uprooted it, but i'm really confused as the what the root system is supposed to look like. On mine its more of a stump than a root system, there appears to be nothing trailing from stump as other plants' roots do, (i've scraped the bark and its green so i believe it still could be alive) but it looks dead as a dodo.
Does anyone know how it should look?