Fear and pruning Part 2 - Don't strangle the vines

Hannah explains why just one wrong move with the secateurs could herald disaster for the vineyard

“Here’s the baguette, that’s the courson, leave two eyes, OK now go” are some of the scariest words I know. I’m not the kind of person who just 'goes' at the best of times, let alone when bone-numb cold, hungover from the night before and armed with a box-sharp pair of secateurs. I’m campaigning for a name change as I don’t feel the tool’s official designation does justice to the damage a pair can do in the hands of a first-day stagier.

Pruning is scary, even more so when taking instructions from a handsome man in a language I hardly understand. One snip can set a vine back years. Cut in the wrong place and you interrupt the sap’s flow. Do this consistently and the effect is strangulation - visualise tying your garden hose into a triple bow. Cut too long and you create more work. Cut too close and you cause necrosis - Ditto when you cut the wrong way. Cause too many necroses and it becomes the shortest lesson in Greek you’ll ever need. ‘Nekros’ means dead. The end.

Pruning is difficult.…