Rusty_Hinge writes
The message
from K contains these words:
Rusty_Hinge writes
The message
from K contains these words:
The suggestion is that you train last year's growth into a fan shape,
and tie in all this year's shoots vertically.

Vertically? Vertically! Any bramble worth the name will be scraping the
sky if grown vertically!

Even in the first year up to fruit picking time? I grow the various
hybrids, and would expect about 8 ft.

I'm not going out now to measure mine (Oo-er!) but I'd estimate fifteen
to eighteen feet - and those were terminated before *THEY* had
intended...

I'd expect that eventually but not in the first summer, certainly not
from shoots that maybe only started in may or june.


If you let last year's and this year's shoots mix in with each other,
untangling them all for pruning in the autumn is a real pain, especially
when you get to the stage of each shoot being 10 ft or so.

No problems, providing you only take short lengths - easier to feed into
the incinerator or on the bonfire thus.

It's a problem! I've done it. Taking short lengths doesn't help because
you keep having to push your hand through the tangle to get at the next
short length. Much easier to keep first and second year growth separate.

I've done it too, and it's a doddle - and mine have somewhat vicious claws.

Maybe the difference is that I am allergic to the sap, so too much
touching of the plants while sorting them out is a problem for me. I
used to
start by cutting the base of fruited shoots and working up about a yard
at a time, but that meant I kept having to reach through new canes. Then
I'd cut the strings holding the new canes and try to rearrange them in a
tidy sort of fashion.

I's much easier now I keep the two sets separated.

The other problem might be that mine are a bit too close together (I've
only got a small garden). so they're not trained in a straight line,
they're coiled around in a 6ft dia circle, as many times as is needed.
All adds to the tangling.
--
Kay