Gooseberries

Layering Sticks

Here is a collection of sixteen layering sticks. Two of them are face-on.

The sticks are made from eight-inch lengths of batten or thin trim, and I have used a chop-saw to cut a rough groove, about three-blades wide, at the end of each stick.

The gooseberry bushes send out branches, some of them only an inch or two above the ground.

I place the stick so that the sawn groove straddles the gooseberry branch, and then tap the stick so that the fork end is driven into the ground.

When the inner end of the groove engages the branch, it draws the branch into an arch, into the ground about an inch or two.

The branch bends so that the tip of the branch, with a few leaves, is arched upwards.

The lower curve of the branch, driven underground, bruises or ruptures and from this bruise or rupture roots will appear. Next spring you can dig up each new rooted branch tip and in this way propagate your gooseberry stock.

This year (2023) my four bushes look like producing up to fifty new bushes next spring.

Here are half a dozen layering sticks, each pinning down a low-level branch. This image represents six new gooseberry bushes next year.

Another collection of layering sticks, a birthday present for a gardening friend.

I gave these eight-inch lengths of batten two swipes with the chop-saw, wider slots means less likelihood of small branches being sheared in half.

Here are five layering sticks creating five new gooseberry shrubs for next year.

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