Looking after raspberry bushes: how should they be pruned?

When you have raspberry bushes in your garden, it's essential to plan to prune them once a year. This is a shrub that can grow up to 1.50 m above the ground, with stems covered in small thorns. The fruit is generally red, although there are varieties with other colours. Pruning raspberries is an important operation in the shrub's development cycle, and in particular helps to increase fruit productivity from one year to the next.

Distinguishing between remontant and non-remontant varieties

The raspberry bush is a very hardy plant, and as such adapts to virtually all types of soil. In addition, it has the particularity of producing suckers, which corresponds to its method of propagation. The new shoots emerge directly from the ground in spring, to produce stems that will be able to bear fruit very quickly, depending on whether it is a remontant or non-remontant variety.

• The raspberry treeremontant, also known as biferous, is characterised by its ability to produce fruit twice a year. The first appearance of fruit takes place between June and July, and comes from the previous year's mother stem. The second burst of fruit occurs between August and October and comes from suckers on the upper part of the branches. These suckers will produce raspberries again in June and July of the following year, before dying back.
• The non-suckering raspberry, on the other hand, will only produce raspberries once a year, between June and July. The raspberries produced then come from the shoots that appeared the previous year. It's a good idea to grow different varieties in your garden, so that you can enjoy harvests that are spread out from June until the frosts appear.

Size of raspberry bushes according to their type

Trimming raspberry bushes in the vegetable garden is useful for several reasons, namely to clear the dead wood from the plant and limit the spread of raspberry bushes, which tend to become invasive. In addition, it ensures better production and helps to strengthen the plant.

To carry out effective pruning of raspberry bushes, you first need a sharp pruning shears that you will take care to disinfect well with alcohol, for example. This way, you avoid the spread of diseases through contact.

You do not proceed in the same way depending on whether you are dealing with a remontant variety or a non-remontant variety.

• If you're dealing with a non-remontant raspberry, i.e. one that only produces once a year, you have two options. You have the choice of pruning the branches in autumn or spring. In this case, you need to remove the dried-out branches that have borne fruit during the summer, cutting them down to ground level. In addition, the same procedure should be applied to twigs that appear to be more stunted, and those that are more vigorous, which promise good future harvests, should be left in place.
• In the case of a remontant raspberry tree, i.e. one that produces several times a year, pruning operations will take place during the winter months. However, make sure you do it when the temperatures are mildest. Completely dry branches will be cut right down to their base. For those that have produced raspberries from August to October, they should be cut back to around 80 cm from the ground.

In addition to these so-called fruiting prunings, you have the option of enriching the soil in autumn by putting down manure, and make a contribution of fertiliser adapted to the raspberry tree in spring.