Why is pruning important for raspberries?
You must know that raspberry twigs only bear fruit in their second year of life and they die the following year. It is therefore useless to keep the branches that have fruited, because they consume the resources of the plant in vain, in addition to cluttering the raspberry bush. In addition, these twigs are very invasive and proliferate quickly if they are not pruned. The size is therefore essential and must be performed each year.
Pruning everbearing raspberries and non-everbearing raspberries
Raspberries can be remontant or not remontant. The remontants give fruit twice a year, towards the end of summer, that is to say from August to mid-October and at the beginning of the following summer, around June. Non-remontant raspberries only bear fruit once a year, in early summer.
Pruning Everbearing Raspberries
Everbearing raspberries are pruned by cutting all stems that have borne fruit at ground level during the summer. These stems are easily recognizable, as they are the driest. The branches that have fruited in the fall must, for their part, be folded down to a height of about 80 centimeters of the ground. To find your way, cut directly under the stem of the fruit that these branches have borne.
Pruning non-remontant raspberries
For non-remontant raspberries, you must cut the branches as soon as the harvest is finished and as soon as they begin to dry up and become stunted. It is then necessary to fold back part of the remaining stems, that is to say those which have not yet borne fruit. These stems must be pruned only partially, at a height of about fifty centimeters from the ground, which promotes their subsequent fruiting.
Prune raspberries to limit their proliferation
Thanks to its highly developed root system, which is similar to that of quackgrass, the raspberry tends to be very invasive. To prevent it from invading spaces in the garden other than those allocated to it, the raspberry must be pruned, but not only.
Must also cut off roots that grow too far. The severed root must then be dug out of the ground, because even so it can come back to life and give new branches.