OK. Number 1. - don't prune it now. It should be flowering at this time of year and beginning to set fruit. If you pruned it you would lose the fruit. You should prune it when it is dormant ie winter. In fact it doesn't need much pruning at all for a few years yet.
2. It appears to be in a pot. Does it have to be? You CAN grow them in pots but they are a lot happier and less trouble in the ground.
3. Why do you want it in a fan shape? Is it just aesthetics? BCs are normally grown as bushes and do not take as readily to training as red or white currants because you neeed to keep removing older wood so you have to keep retraining a new framework of branches.
4. It looks squashed up against that wall. Bearing in mind that it can get to be four feet tall is that the best place for it? If you truly want to fan train it each branch needs its own wire or tie. Just shoving all the growth behind a retaining wire will damage the foliage, especially if it gets windy. It also stops air circulation which helps ward off pests and diseases. And it reduces the amount of light falling on the plant.
5. Have a look at the link for the RHS advice on black currants.
6. A good trick for easy pruning (in a few year's time) is to cut off whole older fruiting branches when you harvest the fruit. This way you don't have to spend ages with your back bent picking individual berries and get the pruning done all at the same time.

Here is a link that might be useful: RHS advice on blackcurrants

Ok to adress your questions

1) *musn't prune when flowering* noted
2 + 3) I only have small back yard about 20ft x 20ft, which is paved this will be my only blackcurrant plant (maybe one more?) I could grow as bush, but I thought it would get more light to more to the plant this way?
4) I placed it there to acclimatise it from the nursery. It seems quite happy in the sun so I've moved it along the wall where it'll get more hours of sunlight, probably a good 6ish hrs depend on weather.
5 + 6) noted :0)

what about that pot size. Presuming the bigger the better?

Thanks for the advice and info.

Hi MF - lucky you, 20 x 20 eh? Bit bigger than mine then... But I have to confess to having an allotment too which is where the BCs live.

Regarding the amount of light falling on the plant. If each branch was separately trained that might be the case but I thought yours looked as if you'd bunched all the branches up and squashed them in behind a wire. The same applies to air circulation.

BCs are happy in sun but not in heat so although the wall is sunny it might also be a bit hot. Obviously if it's in a pot you can move it around to see how it copes.

But - in a pot it will take more looking after as BCs like plenty of moisture and that's harder to provide in a pot. As you say, the bigger the pot, the better.

But it looks healthy at the moment, so good luck and I hope all goes well.

It's not a very good picture :0) They were that tightly packed together when I 1st got it that it didn't look very bushy at all. I've moved it down the wall and it's a lot happier, and its starting to look a bit more free.

I don't mind looking after it as I like to be more hands-on and I woul imagine this is one of the biggest differences between container gardening and large garden gardening.

I'm considering getting one of those Hoselock watering things for when I'm away though.

Thanks for the help.

Hello Ferret. Just a comment on the foliage of your plant and how shiny and dark it looks. Makes all my Ribes look 'anaemic' in comparison. It'd be interesting to find out why there's such a difference in your leaves, if it's some nutrient my plants aren't getting enough of or it's an effect of the photo. Whatever the reason, it makes for a healthy looking plant. Do you know what variety it is?

Nothing to add to what Flora's said about training but there's a high chance that any cuttings you make will root too if you have a spot to plant them. You'd probably be fine while away by just protecting the pot from direct sunlight and covering the soil with sphagnum or something but no guarantees.

For a second variety, consider 'Ebony' for fresh eating, claims of being twice the normal berry size, the sweetest variety and a true dessert fruit sound like a real step forward for BC. I have a couple coming in to fruit so will be able to test the claims about them soon myself. :)
Good luck.

The variety is ben lomond and yes it looked like a good plant when I bought it, it's bushed out even more now (I'll take a newr pic soon). Only thing I've done is put a few shakes of miricle grow pellets on it and kept it against the wall in full sun for a good 6hrs. Given it a good water
morning and evening, when the suns not so hot though.

Might get another TBH

Regarding taking cuttings, do I cut the old wood with shoots attached, new wood, or what? I've not been gardening long, just a couple of months really and don't really understand what I should do with such things.

Ah, Ben Lomond is the variety they make Ribena with iirc and it accounts for almost all blackcurrants in existence. I'm sure I must have some here too but they'd be in a patch of mixed varieties I took from cuttings. Wouldn't know if I was eating Ben Lomond or not from that patch unfortunately. :)

I'm hardly an expert with cuttings myself, blackcurrants being about the only plant I've bothered with to date as they're that easy. I just cut about 8" strips of brown wood and push 2/3rds in the ground making sure they're not upside-down lol. I suppose you should remove the green parts first but I'm sure I've planted some with a few small leaves on and they've just grown anyway. Other things to consider may be planting them in a more shady area and loosening the ground a bit or putting them in pots in the shade first. Though I don't think blackcurrants need it, using hormone rooting compound can't hurt either but with the short effective lifespan of the powder (think it's 6 months before it's useless) it could be a waste of money, another option is to make your own using willow if you know of a tree near. One thing I've noticed with these cuttings is they don't take well to competition from grass and weeds when small. Where in some plants (blueberries for one imo) this would cause a surge in height, blackcurrants seem to just sit under the invaders not getting as much growth from lack of light. That's been my experience anyway, I'm sure someone with more knowledge in taking cuttings can clue you up far better than I but BC must be one of the easiest cuttings to succeed with so a great plant to start.

So just an 8inch strip without and shoots?

I've done a few from my mint plant an even a pepper I thought I'd killed, but mint is easy and the pepper I think is quite a hardy one, or seems to be.

Are cuttings better than seeds, I've heard they don't grow apples and things from seeds really, is this the same for berries?

BC's are the easiet things in the world to do cuttings from. Seeds would take ages and you have no idea what sort of plants you'll get. (As you've heard about apples). I have used BC twigs for pea sticks and have ended up with a row of BCs by the time the peas are finished. Just cut a length, shove it in the ground and forget it (unless there's a drought, in which case water it). I don't bother to strip off leaves are use any rooting help. They really are that easy.

I expect you could succeed with smaller pieces of wood with these. Ideally you'll be burying a minimum of 3 or preferably more of the leaf nodes or whatever they are and leaving 2 or 3 above ground to form shoots. I've seen single 8" sticks of Ben Lomond for sale on Ebay with the gimmick "Grow your own Ribena plants!". Quite funny and almost guaranteed to work really due to the percentage of these that take. I just searched for Ben Lomond and Ribena, the company is apparently using a lot of strains now and has developed some new resistant and evenly ripening ones, modern British winters with fluctuating warmer spells giving uneven fruit maturity and the company a headache.

Be careful where you plant mints, they can take over a lawn in no time and leave a lot of dead sticks for a lawn in their wake. Peppers and mint will grow easily from seed like most veg will, I think Ribes would need cold stratifying and probably wouldn't come true to the variety you had the seed from anyway. Depending on how close the BC variety is to type, I can't really think of a reason to plant BC seeds unless you were crossing with other Ribes or were hoping to get a chance superior seedling, otherwise just sticking with cuttings is probably best with them. Now if somebody wanted to cross 'Ebony' with some vigorous, monster high brix gooseberry, those seeds would be well worth planting I'm sure. :)

It's the same for other fruit I think. If the fruit you want is from a a naturalised specimen, there's a high chance of getting a similar plant from seed, otherwise clone it vegetatively.

I'm actually growing a couple of apples from seeds just for the sake of it. :0)

Going to do a couple of cuttings then, hoping to see a few berries soon, when/how do they come about?

Hehe that's the spirit. A couple of things to bear in mind with your seedlings, one is that they'll more than likely grow huge, maybe not a problem if you do somehow get a good apple from it as you can graft the branches to dwarfing stock. Another is it would pay to try to find out what the likely pollinator was, for instance if it was a Fuji seed from a tree in a Fuji orchard, I'd have more hope for it than if it was from a lone garden tree deep in apple blossom county. :p It would also mean if you did have something good there you could name the lineage.

There are some fair sized naturalised members of the Malus species that have been used in creating some of the varieties available so I'm not going to say that the seedlings will revert to crab apples (even though it's probable). There are some good stories on the net about intrepid fruit finder types traveling to remote locations in search of legendary lost Malus members. Great stuff really, this hobby has it all :) So, a bit of research on the genetics of your seedlings and you can be better informed as what to expect from these and your next ones.

I think you've missed berries this year btw if you haven't seen your BC flower yet. Not sure about that though but most of mine are setting fruit now. Will have to wait till next year I think.

I meant the Malus genus, not species and the stories I read were probably about legendary lost members of Pyrus or something anyway :D Dementia may be setting in.

I've got regular looking flowers (you can see one or two in the pic) but they arnt berry shaped, they presumably just have the nectar in them. Are these where the berries are supposed to form?

On closer inspection this morning I do have some swellings, so I might get some BC after all.

As for the apples, just planted 3 seeds from some golden delicious apples I ate, they haven't germinated yet but I'll just leave them in seed pots, could take months I beleive.

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