How To Prune Your Berry Bushes For The Best Crop

Imagine walking out into your yard on a warm summer morning, and picking a bowl of fresh berries from your own bushes for breakfast. Homegrown berries are so much more flavourful than the ones you buy in the store, and they’re relatively easy to grow. Here in Powell River, we’re lucky to be able to grow a wide variety of small fruit plants.

Let’s start with the basics of how to prune berry plants in your backyard. Different sorts of berries grow on different types of plants. For the most part, small fruit plants can be categorized into bramble and bush types. Bramble fruits have canes, and bush fruits are more like shrubs. Brambles often have thorns or prickles, while bush fruits usually don’t, though some bramble cultivars have been bred specifically to be thornless. Each different type of plant calls for a slightly different pruning technique.

Here are tips for how to prune berry bushes and canes in Powell River.

How to Prune Bush Fruits

Gooseberries require good air circulation and light access into the center of the plant to prevent disease and produce a bumper crop of fruit. Gooseberries should be pruned in late winter when the plant is still dormant. Gooseberry pruning can be a bit complicated because it is done slightly different every year for the first few years. You might want to use a colour-coding system to track the age of each of your gooseberry limbs, and you’ll soon see why:

  • A one-year-old gooseberry plant should be pruned down to just six to eight strong and balanced limbs.
  •  A two-year-old gooseberry will have grown quite a few new branches, you should cut back all but four or five of the new one-year-old limbs, and all but three to four of the two-year-old limbs.
  •  A three-year-old gooseberry should be pruned to leave three to four each of the one-, two-, and three-year-old limbs.
  •  A four-year-old gooseberry should have all of its four-year-old limbs removed.

 After five years, you can stick to the pruning pattern of year three: prune everything back except for three to four each of one-, two-, and three-year-old limbs.

If you can follow all that, your gooseberry bush will end up producing more gooseberries than you can honk at!

Blueberries should have a little bit of pruning every year to keep the plants refreshed. Otherwise, they will slow down after several years and may stop producing fruit altogether. Blueberries should also be pruned in late winter when the plants are dormant. Blueberries need to be thinned out regularly to allow light into the center of the plant and encourage proper air circulation.

  •  Start by pruning off any dead or damaged branches. Cut them off all the way back to the base of the limb.
  • Look for any branches that are crossed or rubbing against each other. Remove one of the crossing limbs.
  •  Old branches should be removed. It’s quite easy to tell them apart from younger stems, as the bark will be dried and gray, and sometimes appears to be pulling away from the wood. Younger stems will have much smoother and securely-attached bark. Old branches must be removed for the plant to start new branches.
  • If your blueberry has been pruned before, you can then cut back up to ⅓ of the oldest and thickest branches.
  •  If your blueberry has not been pruned before, give it a year to recover before you start to remove more of the branches.
  •  In subsequent years, you can remove up to ⅓ of the oldest branches and cut them all the way back to the ground every year to encourage new growth.
  •  Don’t try to shape a blueberry bush too much; they fruit near the ends of branches, so trimming tips for shape will remove your fruit buds.

Honeyberries, or Haskap berries, are fairly easy to grow and don’t require much pruning. Honeyberries should also be pruned when they’re dormant in late winter. In the first few years, you should only remove damaged or dead limbs. Once your honeyberry bush is 4-5 years old, you can start pruning it annually to encourage better fruit production. A honeyberry should be thinned to allow light and good air circulation into the center of the bush.

  • Remove dead, damaged, or diseased limbs every 3-4 years.
  • Prune annually to leave 4-6 healthy and vigorous older limbs, and 3-4 strong new shoots.
  •  Once your honeyberry bush is past five years old, remove the oldest growth every year, removing up to 25% of the bush.

Strawberries may not seem like a bush compared to the fruits above, but they are. Strawberries do require some pruning to encourage the best fruit yield. Otherwise, they’ll focus their energy on sending out runners to propagate new plants.

  •  Strawberries that fruit in June should be cut back after they finish fruiting to a height of 3-4 inches, followed by an application of fertilizer.
  •  In their third year, the plants will stop producing, and you’ll need to start with new plants or allow runners to take root. You’ll then need to move the rooted runners to a new location.
  • Very early blooms should be pinched back to encourage stronger plant growth, which will produce more berries.
  •  Everbearing strawberries that fruit in mid-summer should be pruned throughout the season.
  • Runners should be removed as soon as you notice them to keep the plant’s energy going toward fruit production.
  • If plants have many blossoms, remove the smallest ones daily to promote larger fruits.

Goji Berries can handle some pretty tough pruning. They don’t necessarily require pruning, but they can get quite sprawling and unruly if they aren’t kept in check. For best fruit production, they should be pruned annually in late winter to encourage more branching out for better fruit production.

  •  Remove any suckers sticking out from the base of your plant.
  • Remove dead, weak, damaged, or branches that rub together.
  • Trim back 25-50% of branches to just above a leaf bud. This technique will encourage the bush to branch out more and trigger better fruit production.
  •  Prune back tips to control the overall shape and height of the bush to your preference.

Currants are relatively simple to prune to encourage better fruit production. They should be pruned in winter while they are dormant. They should be thinned out regularly to allow light into the center, and to improve air circulation.

  •  Prune out any dead, damaged, or diseased branches.
  •  Thin the center of the plant to allow light and air in.
  •  Remove any crossing or rubbing branches.
  •  Remove any branches that have stood for three years or more to encourage new growth.
  • Remove low growing branches that are very close to the ground.
  • Remove up to ⅓ of Black Currant branches each year. Do not trim back the tips of Black Currant branches.
  •  Remove up to ¼ of Red Currant branches each year. Do trim back the tips of Red Currant branches.

How to Prune Cane Fruits

Raspberries produce only foliage on first-year canes. In the second year, those canes produce fruit and then die at the end of the season. Raspberries should be pruned in late winter, once the dead canes have dried and become brittle, and before buds have burst on new canes.

  • Blackberries need to be pruned twice each year. First in the spring, and then again in late summer. Similar to raspberries, blackberries produce fruit on canes that are two years old, and then those canes die.
  • In the spring, blackberries should be clipped to shoulder height, similar to raspberries. This will encourage better fruiting, and keep fruit within easy reach for harvesting your crops.
  •  In late summer or early fall, clip off the canes that fruited that year. You can leave them to dry for the fall and winter, and then remove them in late winter if you like.
  • Remove weak and crowded canes and suckers that are growing where you don’t want them.
  •  Remove all dead canes that fruited that year.
  •  Remove any weak or crowded canes; aim for 6-inches of space between canes.
  •  Remove any suckers that have come up where you don’t want them; raspberries like to spread!
  • Shorten the tips of your raspberry canes to approximately shoulder height; this will make harvesting much easier.

Developing a pruning routine for small fruiting plants, from raspberries to strawberries, will give you a better fruit harvest and keep your plants strong and healthy as long as possible. If you have any questions, need any tools, or want to plant some new fruiting bushes, stop by our garden center for a chat. Our staff can help you find the right plants, tools, or advice for whatever type of berry you want to grow.

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