HelpfulGardener.com

Hi guys, I'm new on the site and just wondered if you could help me out.

I moved into a new house about 2 years ago were there was already 1 plum tree, 2 apple trees and a pear tree. The last 2 years I've had tonnes of plums but a lot of the branches were hanging low and touching the ground so I decided to get it pruned during the Autumn of last year. The guy came in and pruned it nicely and sprayed it with something to protect it. As of today, there are no flowers on the tree and no sign of it bearing fruit. There have been no flowers at all on the tree up to this point. The gardener also pruned and sprayed the apple trees and they have tonnes of flowers on them. What could possible have happened to the plum tree and is there any way to sort it out for next year?

Cheers
Richie

Plum trees are usually not given such a hard pruning. My guess is that all of the fruit spurs were removed this year. Once a plum tree has its basic shape established, it shouldn't need more than a light pruning in the spring before growth starts. Removing about 1/3 of the new growth should help keep the branches from drooping too low. Also, in years that the tree sets too much fruit, you may have to cull half or more of the plums.

If you have to prune any of the stone fruits....plum, cherry, etc. then it is best done when they are in full sap run.
ie. In high summer.
This gives them a far better chance of avoiding Silver Leaf and Bacterial Canker as the oozing sap will help fight off infection through the wounds.

As Hendi says...they should never be hard pruned if possible. It's far better to tie down stray branches into vacant space as this acts as a sap slower as well as getting the wood into the sunlight.


It pays on young stone fruit trees to spend the first few years training branches by tying them down so that the trees natural vigour to reach for the sky is restrained and the trees get into good cropping quickly.

Thanks guys! My guess is that guy didn't necessarily know what he was doing... Does that mean the tree is in trouble or will the fruit spurs return? Is there anything I can do?!

It should grow away again Worems...in fact it may well grow too strongly. So be prepared in a couple of years to get some of the more vigorous branches tied down to slow upright growth down.