Mild winter, everything is budding, prune or not?

avalidusername

Like the title says!

Roses are budding, Goji berry bush is flourishing, gooseberries are still dormant/dead wood.

I'm not sure how/if I should prune the first 2. I cut all the obvious dead parts off around October expecting a standard cold winter.....didn't happen, goji started shooting green leaves in December, and after being pot kept for too long it's come along more in 2 months in the ground than the previous 18 months in the ground.

Roses already have good shoots but I'm not sure if I pruned them properly last time. If I try prune them now, will I end up stunting the growth? Maybe better to let them grow a bit wild this year and prune better next year?

Regarding the gooseberries, I don't know. I know they die off in winter, my only experience with them is eating their fruit as a kid, and cursing them when they punctured my football as that was one of my childhood goalposts. They survived all my childhood, I reckon they should be safe to prune whenever it's not raining cos they're hardy as fxxk?

Ideas, experiences, suggestions welcome

macraignil

Had to prune back some of my gooseberry shrubs this year as they were getting a bit out of control and I wanted more space for the other shrubs near them and make it easier to get into the mixed border near the house where they are growing to remove weeds. Once they don't have leaves on the stems I think it is fine to prune them but I've left them without pruning most years and still got good crops of fruit.

I did not realise there was supposed to be any pruning of the gogi berries I have so have not done so.

The roses that are in my garden were pruned severely in autumn to take out dead and diseased wood but I've also left them without pruning some years and they have still produced flowers. Had very few flowers the summer just gone so reckoned it was a good time to cut out more material and give them more manure this winter to hopefully stimulate growth and get a better show of flowers next year. I think the poor performance last summer was more due to lack of manure the winter before rather than anything to do with pruning.

In general if there is no specific reason to prune out diseased material or branches that might be rubbing off each other I'd be inclined just to leave the plant to grow away as it decides to itself. Some fruit trees do seem to benefit from a little pruning each winter. Everything else I only prune when I see a problem.

Harry Palmr

Roses will be fine if you prune them but it is actually better to wait until Spring has sprung properly and then do the job.

avalidusername

Nice one, thanks for your input