why are my blackcurrants not growing?

[schoggiweggli]

I have searched a lot for advice on what to do here but with no success so I'm interested to see if any of you know the answer.

I have two blackcurrant bushes bought a couple of years ago from a good supplier. They are different varieties. I can't remember offhand what varieties they are. The came in 3L pots and were planted into a new raised bed.

In the two years since planting, each spring they sprout new shoots, grow some leaves and then just stop. They are not dying, just not growing. The leaves are undamaged and bright green. It looks rather as if they need more water but whilst we're in a reasonably dry area, the soil is not too dry and an experiment last year of assiduously watering them made no difference.

Could it be a problem with the roots? Is something damaging them? I couldn't see
anything when I dug one up for a look, but the root system was pretty sparse. We have had spider mites in a different part of the garden that killed the leyllandiii hedge ( not a great disaster, allowed us to replace with a nicer yew one ). Could they be the cause?

Any other ideas?

Have you fed them at all?

feed them & give them time to get established. I planted a red currant about 3 years ago and it is only now that it is starting to look a sensible size & gives more than 5 currants per year.

I have fed them. Forgot to say.

Happy to give them more time. Our redcurrants are older now but have been very productive right from the start , so I guess I was thinking these would be faster to get going.

I'm probably just unhappy because Dh keeps telling me how easy blackcurrants are supposed to be!

When I had some blackcurrant bushes I found they did take a few years to get going , I did but them back in the autumn which thickened them up nicely but remember they only fruit on old wood , mine we in a heavy clay soil , once they got going they grew very bushy with lots of fruit , I believe they have a shortish life span

Are they in the ground or in pots?

Did you get any flowers before? Now? Most of mine are in flower now but I do also have a very late variety one and that is only now looking like it is coming to life.

Has anyone been snipping at them?

Can you post a picture?

Mine took a couple of years to get productive. Just patience, really.

Sorry - from your op they clearly are in the ground.

I don’t have much advice, but I love (and have made) schoggiweggli.

Blackcurrants fruit on the previous years wood. So if you’re pruning it regularly you’re cutting off all the fruiting wood. Could this be the problem?

My dad has just pruned our black currents on our allotment ( we inherited them from the last people
that has the plot ) They had lots of sparse twigs and he's cut them back to about 5-6 per bush. Keeping the most leafy ones. They already look so much better and it's only been a couple of weeks.

There's a lot of weeds surrounding it, this was pre pruning. More weeding for me.

@LeaveMyDamnJam

I don’t have much advice, but I love (and have made) schoggiweggli.

Making schoggiweggli has been a key lockdown activity here

Back to blackcurrants.
I don't think I'm over pruning them. Last year I cut off the dead wood that had produced no leaves (2 stalks). There's not been anything else growing to prune even if I wanted to. What leaves there are are on two year old wood.

I've got a close up of the leaves from last week, but not the whole thing, (and now it's raining.)

It's looked like this with no change for a few weeks. And if it behaves like last year it will stay the same all the way through summer until autumn when it loses its leaves again.

Give them time - this year is likely to be the year. Blackcurrants are ridiculously easy once they get going. They just need to get going. They look really healthy. They do like water. Bit of blood fish and bone or chicken poop or manure too.

Very easy to propagate too, take a pruning and stick it in the ground.

Does it have any buds yet?

@ParticularlyThistle

Does it have any buds yet?

No

If anyone is interested, I moved the blackcurrants to a different but still close part of the garden and they've started growing again. Plenty of new leaves coming. I couldn't face a second year of them growing six leaves each and then stopping until Autumn so decided to intervene.

And the plants I put in their place are growing away quite happily.

No idea what the issue really was but

Interesting! I have a blackcurrant that has done next to nothing for several years, while the redcurrant and raspberries nearby romp away. Meanwhile, another one seeded itself by the front door and produced bucketloads until a fungus did for it.