Hi everybody. I'm Christy Wilhelmi from Gardenerd, and before we get to our topic
of today's video, which is pruning blackberries, I want to make a quick
announcement and that is: Gardening for Geeks is back. That's right, here in 2020
the updated version of Gardening for Geeks comes out on February 11th and you
can pre-order it at any of your local book stores. I highly recommend
supporting local independent booksellers, or you can pre-order it on Amazon. If
you're in the LA area you can come to a book signing. We've got them up on the
website. Anyway now on to the show. There are a
few things you need to know about pruning blackberries before you dive in.
One: safety first. Most raspberries and blackberries have
thorns all over them so wear long sleeves, wear thick gloves, wear long
pants, you know, protect yourself. It's really important. And the second thing is
you're going to need a good set of pruning shears and a good set of loppers.
Because loppers will help you get into the places you can't get and sometimes
the branches--the canes--are too thick to cut with pruning shears. So those two
tools and a good set of gloves and long sleeves and you're all set. Now, how do we
begin taming the beast that is blackberries that have been growing all
year? First of all I like to wait until the second year canes die back. Let me
back up a little. Blackberries grow in a certain fashion. The first year they grow
the cane, the second year that cane fruits and then it turns brown and dies.
Meanwhile other canes are growing in their first year. So if you just look for
the brown canes, you can cut those off and then everything that's still living
is going to fruit the following year. So it's really easy, and it's even easier
because you don't have to decide where to cut them, you just cut them all the
way down to the soil. Now the remaining canes, anything still green, you want to
cut back to four feet high and, you know, that's not like it has to be exactly
four feet high but it's a good idea to start with that. So step one: cut
everything back to four feet high because sometimes the canes will
arch over and get in the way of you getting underneath to cut all of those
dead canes out. Step two: go in and cut all the brown canes down to the
ground and that's about it. Now I'm going to show you how but don't laugh. I need
an extra layer of protection because my blackberries are right next to my
beehive. Yeah...so I try to schedule pruning for when the sun's going down or
before it comes up, but sometimes that makes things really hard to see. So I'm
gonna wear my bee suit in order to cut these blackberries. Let's take a look. It
ain't pretty but it works. Okay, so once you find yourself well protected
grab your shears and your loppers and I do two sets of gloves. So up first I put
on gloves that fit me well and I like these here like this. And then I put
another set of gloves that are bigger, they're actually my husband's, on over
the top. And these are leather which protect you from getting completely torn
up as you prune. Ready? Okay. So let's take a closer look at what
needs to be pruned. We've got the top growth here that's all going to be cut
down to four feet and I've already done a little bit of rudimentary pruning to
make it so that you can actually see the structure of the canes themselves. And
then we get down to the mess underneath and you can see over here behind the
roses, they're actually a lot of brown canes. Those have to be cut away. You can
see over here a good example of the brown canes here, and the green canes
that are still alive those are the canes that are going to
fruit in spring. It's hard to know where to begin exactly so you just start
cutting. The other important thing to know is you want to make your cuts about
a half inch above an outward facing bud just like you would prune most things.
And you can see the buds forming, you can see the buds forming along...see if you can
see this. Here, here, here, here, here. So I want to make a cut that is just
about a half inch above a bud like that. But I'm making remedial just kind of
rough cuts where...I'm just making rough cuts right now so that I can clear the
space. All these guys that are hanging down in front we're going to take them
way back, and then it exposes these dead guys down here which will be cutting
down to the ground.
Yikes, I'm caught. (laughs) It catches on everything this is just...(struggles)
Oh dear, Oh God.
Now that I've pruned away all of the overgrowth I can go in now with the
loppers and cut away all the dead canes down to soil level.
Whoo, this is... it's a process but we're almost done. I mean you can see how much
this has been reduced from that huge mound to just these canes that come
straight up. And now the last step is to go in with pruning shears and cut any
horizontal canes that are coming off those verticals back to just one or two
buds. So then we're done. Yay! So there you have it, it's not difficult it's just
time consuming and, you know, you might get a few scrapes and scrapes and
whatnot. But if you do it every year faithfully while they're dormant before
new growth starts you will have a fabulous season of blackberries. So if
you like this video share it with your friends and don't forget to subscribe
and turn on notifications so you can find out when our next video is coming
online. And while you're at it don't forget to pick up your copy of the new
Gardening for Geeks. It's got six new plant profiles and updated terminology
and resources. So don't forget to pre-order your copy it comes out
February 11 2020. Happy gardening.