I missed the spring budding of my muscatel grapevine this year. I looked outside one day a few weeks ago, and it was covered in fuzzy little bundles of new growth – much more developed than the first signs of green that I usually watch for each year with great anticipation. I guess I’ve been a bit preoccupied this year with your budding. Or should that be your Mum’s budding?
Anyway, normally I pay careful attention to the new buds, so that I can try predicting the directions of the year’s growth, and start thinking about how I will have to train the canes. The vine is still pot-bound, trained around a conical frame, and so space is at a premium. Since grapes grow on two-year-old wood (and since the aim of training is to increase the potential yield) it’s really all a bit speculative.You start off watching these tiny little buds, and take a guess at the direction in which they seem to be growing.
As the branches grow, you then support them and train them to grow in ways and directions that will potentially lead to optimum productivity in the years to come.A bit later on, towards the start of the following season, you sacrifice some of the older, less productive branches in favour of dedicating more of the plant’s limited resources to the younger, vital growth.
Sometimes you’re right, sometimes you’re wrong – but you do the best you can based on the information at hand.So I guess horticulture’s not a bad metaphor for L-plate parenting: focus on supporting and nurturing short-term development, but always keep a wary eye on long-term maturation.
My only problem with this metaphor is if I extend it to my two olive trees, which I supported for too long by selecting the wrong height of stakes. As a result, they are tall, spindly things, incapable of standing on their own and hardly productive whatsoever.
But then again – perhaps they’re simply teenagers.
