Conserving Gooseberry seeds

[Tengu]

Found some vintage stock and aim to preserve them for the Lost gardens of Heligan...They are always interested in old breeds for their nursery. (Maybe you have some you can donate too?)

These are small and red...not like Gooseberrys at all. Nor do they taste as such.

I have taken cuttings as well but I wont be in Cornwall until next week, -need to conserve the berry seeds.

What would you do?

 

[daveO]

They take so easily from cuttings that I'd stick to that. Seed could produce a hybrid plant or might even be sterile so if the original plant form is what you want to preserve then cuttings are the way to go.

 

[Tengu]

That makes sense.

Came from a ruined cottage garden in a very exposed position; I assume they are tough, and indeed fertile

 

[Woody girl]

I've seen rose cuttings stuck into potatoes . Wonder if it would work for the gooseberry cuttings.? I don't know how many you have but maybe worth trying it with a couple or three, as well as a normal rooting powder in a pot way.

 

[Janne]

Can you layer a couple of branches as well? Then you are extra safe...

Cuttings are the only way to get exactly the same as the parent bush. it sounds like that bush has been seed spread and reverted back to an earlier form?
I used to find trees like that around places that used to be inhabited ages and ages ago.

 

[daveO]

What were the spines like on the stems? I've got one red variety and it's got much less spines than most of my green ones. The fruit is much sweeter too, more like a grape than a gooseberry. I can't remember the cultivar name now though. There's bushes growing there though that have been unmanaged for about 40 years. They self layer easily so I assume the bush has wandered around a bit over that time with the old wood dying off and the layered branches taking over. I cut straight 6-10" sections of stems off in the autumn, stick them in soil over the winter and they nearly always root by the spring.