Grape Vine

accountingbod

I have a very prolific grape vine in my garden. Last year i got about 15 carrier bags full of grapes from it which were lovely.

I only bought the house last year so dont know the history.

Over the winter due to renovating the actualy house the garden has been very neglected and looking at the vine the other day it looked almost dead - no buds or anything.

I did not cut this back at all since last year and really want to try to keep it alive if it is not too late.

Should i give it a good pruning? It is about 7 foot high, very wild and growing over my greenhouse a bit as well!

Eventually i would like to train it to form an arch but don;t know if this can be achived with grape vines?

Mostly, i just want the lovely grapes again this year!

Thanks

Farway

Ideally you should have pruned it during winter. If it showing no sign of growth you may just have time, otherwise the sap will bleed out once into growth

You can train into an arch, but you would need to be on top of it as they can be very vigorous

Unless you are sure about what you are doing I would not give a good pruning as you may loose the crop

I would just remove the bit covering your greenhouse for now, then read up on pruning & training a grape vine.

accountingbod

thanks for the response

so i could cut it now or leave it until next winter to cut back?

RAS

Cut one small branch, if that is OK, cut slightly further back and keep going gently (allow time between cuts) until one cut start to weep. That tells you roughly how much you can cut it back without it bleeding badly

accountingbod

Thanks RAS

Farway

I forgot to add, have a look at the RHS site

Check under grape, and anything else whilst at it

accountingbod

Thanks Farway

realfood

It is too late to do major pruning now. Leave it till next december or January when the vine is dormant.

accountingbod

Thanks realfood

Someone said to just trim it back to the beginning of the past year's growth? Back to the knuckle where the new wood started growing from?