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Well, we got a late start to the pruning season this winter. I usually like to start in late December and try and have it wrapped up as soon as possible, usually in mid March before the sap starts to to flow, but we ran to one of the wettest January and February’s on record here in Western Washington state. It rained almost every day in January and it wasn’t that misty, drizzle we can get for days on end. It was a freaking downpour for days and weeks. So bad, my storage room on the ground floor flooded because my vegetable garden doesn’t have a good way to drain. The water seeped into the side of the house. Note to self, dig a French drain next spring!
Needless to say, I hate pruning in the rain. I would rather try and prune in the snow or a windstorm. It’s miserable. Finally around Valentines day, the weather seemed to get back to normal, which means some rain and some sunshine. I was literally put back by almost 2 months and wouldn’t you know, it was warmer than normal so the buds are starting to turn fuzzy and some vines are already pushing sap.
I get a lot of questions about pruning. When, what, how, etc for our region. The answer largely depends on what you are growing, but generally you want to do what they are doing in Oregon and not Eastern WA. Anyone from WA state knows that we have two significantly different climates. Western WA state is mild and dampish with influence from the Pacific ocean. When you cross the Cascade mountain range, the weather turns decidedly sunny and dry. So dry they can only grow grapes with irrigation, while in western WA you can grow grapes in most places without irrigation (I say most because there are a few really dry places in Sequim and the San Juan Islands).
This dictates how we prune. Cooler climates generally do “cane” pruning and sunny and warmer climates do “cordon” (aka spur) pruning. Cane pruning is the predominate way they do it in Burgundy and the Willamette valley, so I don’t argue with it. Supposedly in climates that have abundant sunshine, bud fruitfulness they can do cordon pruning with good results. The big difference is that we try to do what is the least amount of work and cordon pruning is less work because you skip the step of tying down the canes every year, but in a high fertility environment, like we have in the Puget Sound region, you might have unmanageable growth.
I plan on taking you through the steps that I use to prune over the next few weeks.
