[geeks] Greenery and brambles...

Mon Oct 28 15:18:24 CST 2002

[ On Monday, October 28, 2002 at 14:23:40 (-0600), Mike Hebel wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: [geeks] Greenery and brambles...
>
> Funny.  We never had to do that with my Grandmother's plants.  But then 
> she was _extrmely_ good with plants.  They kinda just grew where she 
> told them and how she told them. ;-)

Caning raspberries was pretty common practice with all the English
immigrants I grew up around....

I read on the WWW too that the "old wood" should be removed after it has
produced fruit and that it's also a good idea to prune the new shoots
down to about two feet at the same time as well, though I don't remember
doing the latter to our patch.

    http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/r/raspbe05.html

My Grandma always taught us to be very careful which canes we were
removing and to not damage the young ones.

We always burned the old canes to make sure any diseases that might have
been starting on them were eliminated for certain.  Old raspberry canes
burn hot, fast, and furious -- being able to help to do the burning was
part of the incentive to doing the scratchy hard work of cutting out the
old canes!  (especially on freezing cold fall afternoons!)

Maybe your Grandma removed the canes herself without you knowing!  ;-)