Currant affairs
Pretty to look at and easy to look after – it’s no wonder the flowering currant can be found in so many gardens
Not all of my favourite flowers are classy. Some are what you might call common as muck – but I wouldn’t want you to think they are not worth growing.
Take the humble flowering currant, Ribes sanguineum. I love it to bits.
There are childhood associations here
– my dad grew it outside our back door when I was a nipper and clipped it so that it formed a six-foot cube that did not impede our passage in and out of the kitchen.
I grew up thinking this must be the way to prune it, as such harsh treatment did not stop it flowering.
But I have since come to realise that there are other ways of growing it. It makes a wonderful hedge if grown in a row, or an 8ft high and 6ft wide shrub if left to its own devices.
There are those who suggest it should be pruned every year, but I tend to leave mine for a few years and thin it out after flowering.
‘Pulborough Scarlet’ is the one that is a rich rosy red, but there is a gentler shade called ‘Porky’s Pink’.
I’d also recommend the very elegant ‘Tydeman’s White’.
Shrubs that flower in March are to be treasured and the lovely thing about the flowering currant is that it is also easy to propagate.
Semi-ripe cuttings can be taken in July from the shoot tips. Make them 4in long and remove the lower leaves.
They will root in pots of sandy compost and produce youngsters that can be planted out where they are to grow the following spring. Flowering currants are fast growers, putting on a good foot or 18in a year, but if this worries you, just copy my dad and give the plant a major haircut with a pair of shears.
So go on – if you haven’t got one, now is a great time to plant since you can see exactly what colour the flowers are. And when you bruise the leaves, which unfurl along with the drooping flower clusters, you release that tangy blackcurrant aroma – it takes me straight back to my childhood.
Common as muck? Don’t you believe it. It’s a classy bit of stuff.
My dad grew a currant bush that formed a 6ft cube