Donate SIGN UP

Bleeding grapevine...advice needed

Avatar Image
Greenmantle | 11:14 Tue 07th Apr 2009 | Home & Garden
4 Answers
I inherited a vast rambling grape vine at my new property which had been allowed to climb over the shed roof, and 30 feet up a pine tree. Consequently it had very small, poor quality fruits the last two years. Having read up on how to prune it, I cut it back quite dramatically, to two buds, just before Christmas, when the sap was dormant, and it did not bleed at all at the time.

I now have new buds forming all over which is encouraging, but 4 places where I had to cut quite thick vines to get it out of the tree, (slightly thicker than my thumb) have now started bleeding alarmingly. A steady drip, drip. I bought some Prune & Seal gum made by Arbex, and have applied two coats, first scorching the cut ends with a blow torch as directed on the instructions, but it has had no effect. The sap still oozes unchecked, and is probably preventing the gum from setting.

I guess I should sealed it when I first pruned it, and it was a dry wound, but I was advised it wouldn't be necessary.

Will it stop bleeding as new growth develops and takes up the sap, or is it likely to bleed to death?
Any ideas for stopping it?

Many thanks guys

Andy
Gravatar

Answers

1 to 4 of 4rss feed

Best Answer

No best answer has yet been selected by Greenmantle. Once a best answer has been selected, it will be shown here.

For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.
i hacked my very old outdoor grapevine back last summer and it did exactly the same - drip, drip, drip. i didn't do anything to it and it did eventually stop, it didn't bleed to death and no harm seems to have been done to it. i'm just hoping i'm going to get some grapes again this year, my hacking took all the flowers and baby grapes last year.
Question Author
Thanks Ethan...that's very reassuring. Especially if you pruned your actually in the growing season.... Guess I will just have to let nature readjust itself!

Our vines do that every year, it's when the sap begins to rise. It's quite normal. Walk in a vineyard and the vines there do it too. A vine needs to suffer to produce fruit, that's what the french say anyway.
probably not the best time of year for us to have chopped ours back, but it needed to be done due to some major garden sorting out.
i'm going to have a bash at making wine with our grapes this year, assuming the vine produces any. in the past, i've just let the birds have them, they're not very nice tasting for eating. i've bought all the necessary stuff for making it and have all the info so we'll see.
coccinelle, we're heading over to la belle france (south of beziers) for our usual 6-7 weeks later in the year. you're lucky living there. we once had a row of vines and the wine they produced, for one year, as a christmas present, and have photos of us with 'our' vines when we visited them.

1 to 4 of 4rss feed

Do you know the answer?

Bleeding grapevine...advice needed

Answer Question >>

Related Questions

Sorry, we can't find any related questions. Try using the search bar at the top of the page to search for some keywords, or choose a topic and submit your own question.