Forum

Replies

• 

  john jones January 16, 2017 at 11:10pm

  Number one thing is leave it alone until May/June earliest. Pruning now can lead to silverleaf disease. If it's already got this then you want to cut all that wood out. (But you won't see this until the leaves are back anyway.)

  Ask why they want it done. If it's just because they think it's sick and needs fixing then I would try to tell them plum trees can be in a pretty rough state with canker etc - even to the point of having whole branches that are completely hollow - and still carry on ok for ages, giving a good crop. So it's best to do a relatively minimal job. You can cut out big branches, but it would be better to not do too much at once. It is better to do it gradually over 2/3 years. (Customers may not like to hear this but it is true. Basically if you completely muller it (and it doesn't die) it will sprout all over and then you've a different problem on your hands.) I don't think you will ever get to the point,at least not quickly,on an old tree,of having no diseased wood left at all, and I wouldn't regard that as a seriously bad thing..

  I wouldn't want to pollard it. Even less coppice. If it survived, which it might, I doubt it would look good except maybe in the long term after a lot of looking after. And cropping would obviously be badly affected. If the crop is unimportant or even a nuisance then just dig the whole thing out and plant something more ornamental.
  • 

    Sammy Willis > john jones January 17, 2017 at 9:52pm

    Thank you John

    Unfortunately the gypsies went round and "pruned" this lady's plum tree over Christmas. They did her cherry trees too, chopped her hazel trees down and roughly cut her laurel hedge. We have been given responsibility for fixing this garden as it was neglected for a couple of years and then decimated by gypsies, who came back this Christmas for another go and have created more mess for me to fix!!! She's elderly and apparently thought it was us and trusted the people to do the right job, which they didnt.

    Anyway.... the fruit on the plum tree has a disease which I think might be both brown rot and plum pocket. The problem is all over tree and she wants it to bear fruit. Not so concerned about the leaves as they appeared fine in the summer, its really the fruit.
• PRO

  Geoffrey King January 18, 2017 at 3:31pm

  Pruning a large plum tree is very similar to apple trees.  My parents have a small 11ft high Victoria which has produced as much as 170lb of fruit.  Over many years I've created a tiered shape using horizontal branches, and I've convinced my Mum chief plum jam maker of their village, to have less but larger plums about the size of large eggs.

  I've pruned & renovated quite a number of fruit trees, open the structure, created a framework, think about the fruit ripening and being able to pick them.  We've got several old plum trees, broken branches, fungus, die back, hollow branches still produce fruit though.  i.e several hundred pounds last year.

  My best tip is to have a look at Russ Metge's website, crammed full of fruit tree pruning techniques

  http://simplytreesut.blogspot.co.uk/

  or follow him on twitter for regular advice  https://twitter.com/RussMetge
  • 

    Sammy Willis > Geoffrey King February 7, 2017 at 4:46pm

    Thank you Geoff. Much appreciated. With the weather being fairly warm for winter I am hoping there wont be much damage so we will se how it goes.