Pruning

It's getting towards the end of winter, which makes it time to make sure we've pruned many of the plants. The new fruit and ornamental trees need formative pruning, and the fruit bushes in the kitchen garden all need annual attention.

So, today, we have:

• Cut back all the laterals on the apples and pears below 1.75m (only one is this tall, in fact, so it mostly just meant cutting back all the side shoots). The oldest apple tree, which came with us when we moved in, is now tall enough to have it's leader cut out at the 1.75m mark (or so). All the laterals below this have been trimmed back, and it's got a few lateral shoots at that height, which we'll now train in to become the main lateral framework of the tree.
• Not done anything with the plums or cherries. We're leaving them another week or two, to minimize the risk of silver leaf infection.
• Taken out some of the old wood on the oldest blackcurrant, and a few dodgy looking stems on the other two.
• Tip pruned and shortened side-shoots on the redcurrants and whitecurrants.
• Taken out damaged wood on the blueberries (still too small to take out old wood).
• Tidied the gooseberries: they're particularly bad at branches flopping onto the ground, so this always needs quite a lot of work -- they're also bad at growing into the path.
• Undertaken major work on the three established apples that were already on the hillside. None of these has ever been pruned, we think. One of them isn't too badly formed, but the others are over-grown 'bush' forms. The first just needed a low, unbalanced lateral taking out, and is now pretty neat. The other two both had errant cross-cutting stems, rubbing branches, and dead wood: they're now both considerably better, but will never win prizes for training. Never mind: they should, at least, be healthier, stronger, and better bearers!

Apart from that, we weeded a few beds, chopped down and dug in the green manure, and potted up some new arrivals: four hostas ('Canadian Blue', 'Fire and Ice', 'Touch of Glass' and 'White Feather'); six mixed astilbes; and a dwarf red Japanese azalea.

I forgot to mention some acquisitions from the garden centre during our week of trench and hole digging: three kaffir lilies (the outside variety Schizostylis coccinea, not the houseplant, Clivia miniata, which we also have); an Australian mint bush; and a number of heucheras (two Dayglow Pink, two Can-Can, two Marmalade, and a Paris). All very cheap and out of season...we couldn't resist.