Help! Mum cut my gooseberry down!

Hi, it's been a while since I'm been on here, but you guys were very helpful last time so I thought I'd come back with a new probelm.

Basically, I share a garden with my mother and last month, she went on a pruning binge. I'm not complaining when she goes after the hydraenga (it's her's) or the roses (as long as she doesn't touch my beloved rambler) but she went a bit overboard and accidentally cut my poor two-year-old hinnomaki red gooseberry down to stubs.

I decided not to panic, and to see if anything would happen when spring started to stick her neck out a bit more. So far, I've got one or two green buds, but I'm still worried. How fast will the branches regrow? This means I won't get any berries this year, doesn't it?

 

As long as your mum doesn't massacre it again in the meantime, it will be recogniseable as a small bush once again by summer.

Stick some bamboo canes in the ground around it to mark its position. You can make it discrete enough so that the view of the garden isn't spoilt, but the markers will be obvious on close inspection, so it may help to prevent more incidents of accidental pruning.

And yes, I think a crop if out of the question this year. Goosegogs produce fruit near the junction of last year's and this year's growth. As last year's growth is now in the compost heap, I doubt there'll be any berries.

 

*phew* Well, as long as it's not permenantly damaged, I think I can live with missing out on gooseberries this year

Thankyou for the tips and the info!

 

The canes will be good to put netting over it when the fruit does come, stick some upturned yoghurt pots on them first.

 

Uh, I don't put netting on my fruit. It sounds like a recipe for distaster, I know, but when I was little my parents put some netting out to cover something - I forget what - and the next morning there were about four various little birds trapped in it - and three of them were already dead :(

It sounds dumb but I'm mortally afriad to using netting to cover my fruit plants now for that reason.

 

No, I understand, thats horrible.

Make a frame and put chicken wire over it instead. Mr Blackbird will have the lot away if he can.

 

*nodnod* I'd thought of using that, but I haven't implemented it yet. I might test run the idea on the blueberry bush I'm hopefully getting for my birthday :D

 

That would be nice, needs an acidic soil though.

Not had problems with birds with the big netting I use, I can imagine birds getting caught in the finer stuff.

 

Bilberries grow very well just down the road from where I live - surely that means blueberries will be okay too?