Fan trained Gooseberries

[nosduha]

I'm hoping someone can help me as I'm thoroughly confused with fan trained gooseberries!

I've bought four fan trained gooseberries for against a new fence and having read a few RHS books and some googling, three of the plants don't look like the images that I'm seeing in the materials. I can see that one of my plants can be trained as is explained in the books as the growth is all coming from above the pruned out main central stem. But I'm not sure what to do with the others as they don't appear to have growth from a main stem, they seem to have multiple stems from the base. Am I over thing this - do I just train these stems into a fan shape and not worry about the growth all coming from a shortened main vertical stem?

[Peanut]

Hi Nosduha,

Welcome to the vine!
I'm afraid I can't offer any advice about fan training your gooseberries, I can barely keep mine in a decent bush shape, but hopefuilly someone with more knowledge than I will pop along and answer your question soon.

[nosduha]

Thanks for the warm welcome Peanut!

[Andraste]

Hi nosduha

Welcome to the forum

I've moved your question over to the 'Feeling Fruity' board as it may help it to come to the attention of our members who might be able to give you some advice.

[nosduha]

Thank you Andraste

[Andraste]

In the absence of someone with actual experience & knowledge (I've never tried fan training any type of fruit tree/bush myself), I can't see any reason why you can't position multi-stems to start your fan shape - as long as they're soft enough to bend to where you want them.

I'm wondering if you might be lucky enough to find you have more than 1 plant in that pot when you knock it out.

This you would have to research as it's just a random thought with no idea of how successful it would be - but I wonder if could even split it into 2 plants - if you make a nice clean cut & make sure to keep some good roots on both?

Edit to add: if you only want 2 stems to start your fan, you could pick the 2 strongest & cut off the rest?

[Nicos]

On my last allotment I bought a healthy gooseberry bush with four stems at soil level
I layered two to each side and trained them along a chicken wire fence.

Unfortunately we had to give up the plot so can’t comment on how well it did.

Do let us know what you decide to do.

[ChingfordHarry]

Feel free to ignore anything I write!

Traditional bushes tend to be grown from a single leg about 15 - 20 cm tall, and they are allowed to spread out from there. I learnt about this some years after I established my bushes (which have several stems all growing from the ground - it doesn't seem to affect the cropping too badly if at all).

Cordons (which I'm just starting with) usually have one or two vertical stems - they both come from ground level as far as I can work out.

Fans are grown so that the branches radiate from a short trunk - so normally around 15 - 20 cm above ground (think a bush that's been flattened...).

My feeling about this is that these patterns are chosen traditionally because they make it easier to keep the shape you're after rather than any other reason.

It's getting a bit late, but gooseberry cuttings root easily - so if you trim back your cordons and have any hard wood cuttings > ~15cm long you could try to pot them up and get new plants (some varieties are easier than others - Invicta works really well for me, Captivator (the other one I tried) was more iffy).

[nosduha]

Thanks ChingfordHarry - great advice. I'll give the cuttings a go next season and leave the mule stems as they are for now.

[JoaoLeaftide]

The multi-stem approach sounds like it could work well for a fan. Gooseberries are pretty forgiving about being trained as long as you keep the centre open for air. Would be good to see how it looks once the stems are tied in.