Hello,
These are not my plants, they are in a public garden but I have been responsible for them for a few months but not in a supported way. I've been left to get on with keeping them alive but not given money for plant food or told the limits of my remit or what is normally done. I took over after the point of feeding for the summer so don't know if it is okay to feed them. I imagine it is, but when I ask for confirmation I'm not getting replies. I don't want to get into bother for doing things that I shouldn't; it's a public garden and you don't want people coming in looking for fruit and finding funny covered tiny spheres for the kids to play with (NPK) or their fingers smell funny (chicken manure) because they are playing in the soil. Also they should be saying what they use and paying for it.
The garden has raspberries, rhubarb, gooseberries, black, white and red currants. The raspberries are thriving, the black currants are fruiting poorly, the rhubarb stalks are like straws- not even knee high, need divided and are harvested before the stalks are a hands length (medium ladies) long. I fed them NPK and manure because they were doing so poorly and they are harvested heavily and continuously.
Every other bush is basically fruitless. These are big well established plants with lots of leaves, looking more or less healthy. Every branch is bare of fruit and there were no flowers to be seen earlier this year. What fruit there is, is at the bottom (gooseberries) or on one or 3 branches (white/red currants), so entire branches will have small amounts of fruit and others of the same age (colour) are completely bare, rather than each branch the same age having a small amount on them like a neglected plant we inherited.
Two of the redcurrant branches with fruit have gooseberry dieback. I've been cutting these back and I'm going to cut them off later today, leaving two bushes which come to the size of a small car (bigger than an old mini) with one fruiting branch between them. Last year there was no fruit on the redcurrant and lots on the whitecurrants, but this year there is almost nothing on any of them. The whitecurrants are doing better but awful in comparison to last year.
You couldn't get a jar of jam off any of them. In comparison mine are 2 or 3 years old and have heaps of fruit, in poor soil and one branch of any of mine older than this year has more fruit on it than these entire plants, or pair of plants in the case of the red currants. So what is wrong with them?
I know I'm making a big deal about the feeding because they weren't fed this year. I don't know about last, I think they got old hanging basket soil put on them but I don't know and can't get answers. We inherited plants in poor soil and they are fruiting better than these, the fruits are small but they are there in abundance. We had a lot of wind but the site is sheltered by tall hedges.
The person who cared for them was of the attitude that as long as they were weeded and the raspberry canes were cut back that was all that was needed, which is why a great number of the trees in the orchard area is dying of canker. I was told that the blackcurrants were pruned 3 years ago and I pruned the rest of them this winter after being told go ahead then a sign was put up saying not to touch them "Garden club will prune". Ha; I joined the garden club and went with the correct theory that if they didn't bother with doing anything the past few years, they wouldn't bother this year I was correct on that assessment. I didn't take out all the old growth, just the oldest 4/5 branches because they fruit on older growth. The idea is to prune out branches over the next 3 years. Yes, they are that big and have been left unpruned for that long. There has been lots of growth of new branches but I don't think that is the only factor.
I think the person who "cared" for them died so I'm still in charge for the foreseeable future.
What is wrong? Is it a combination of factors? More importantly; what do I do about it?
Currently I think I need to get someone to open up the shed and crack out the feed and continue with pruning out the dieback. This winter prune old growth, the tips and thin some of the new growth.