| Now that the grapevines have dropped all their
leaves, it’s time to start pruning and you have about seven weeks in which to do it,
so you can plan you weekends. Any later than that and the sap of some early varieties will
start moving and the pruning cuts will weep. If
pruning Sultana grapes of the red or green varieties, you need to leave at least 10 buds
on each cane or you will be pruning away next year’s fruit, since they do not flower
and set fruit from spurs like other grape varieties.
Do not take your lead from some local Councils who are out
now pruning the flowering purple-leaf plums in our streets, or you will get no flowers
this spring. All spring flowering ornamental Apples, Peaches, Cherries and Plums are
pruned in summer after their flowering season! I know ‘An expert is someone who has
made all the mistakes’, but I say this every year and surely some of them read our
Eastern Courier! Just try it on a few streets fellers. Summer pruning really does work.
Your resident rate-payers will love you for it.
It’s still a bit early to be pruning roses, since they
are still in growth. They can be left until July and even as late as first week in August.
There are lots of pruning demonstrations planned by rose nurseries, councils and garden
clubs over the next six weeks, that provide you with hands-on experience under expert
tuition, if you feel you need some rose pruning guidance.
American pruning experts mostly agree that there is no need
to paint small and medium sized pruning cuts with mastic or pruning sealant, since it
impairs the healing process. The exception is where the wood is diseased, hollow or rotten
and the natural plant hormones cannot respond from dead tissue.
After pruning your trees and shrubs spray them thoroughly
with a copper based fungicide such as Bordeaux Mixture, Copper oxychoride or Kocide™.
The later is the most expensive, but less threatening to earthworms. These sprays prevent
the early spring spread of fungal diseases, which reduce flowering and fruit set. |
