Latest news with #plum tree
ABC News
5 days ago
- General
- ABC News
Fruit Tree Care
Left to their own devices, some fruit trees will offer up a good harvest each year. But if you follow a seasonal care plan, you're giving your fruit trees the best chance to reward you with bumper crops. While the branches are bare on his 'Satsuma' plum tree, Josh does some pruning. He looks for branches that are crossing over or crowded – removing the congestion ensures more sun into the tree and good air flow through the plant when the leaves have grown back, so it's less prone to fungal diseases or pests. Removing top branches that are too far above head height will also save your tree's energy; there's no point producing fruit that you can't reach. Be aware of the flowering and fruiting habit of the tree you're pruning; plums and other stonefruit produce fruit on second-year wood so don't cut off too much or you'll get no harvest. Josh's dwarf mulberry fruits on new wood so it's more forgiving and can be cut back harder. He's pruned a kumquat back hard after moving it from another part of the garden; he'd hoped for 'mild' conditions but instead it was unseasonably hot and the tree suffered as a result. He has pruned back to one of the few remaining green areas and it's now reshooting. Luckily there are no shoots growing from below the graft (which might show the grafted top section is completely dead), so the tree should re-establish and survive. Josh also clears out groundcover plants under the trees that are prone to fruit flies, such as his tree guava. Make sure there's no old fruit on the ground, to reduce the chance of reinfestation. If you find some, bag it and bin it. Fruit trees are reliant on pollinators so whatever you can do to attract them to the garden will help. Josh plants three low-growing flowering shrubs that are known to attract bees and other pollinators: Euryops, salvia and ageratum. Most fruit trees, especially citrus, are heavy feeders, so fertilising ahead of spring growth is a must. Pelletised manure applied in mid-late winter will have a chance to break down and supply the nutrients to the tree by the time they emerge from dormancy. Finally, a layer of mulch will help keep the soil cool and retain moisture in dry weather. A 50-75mm layer is perfect. Water in well.
The Guardian
08-08-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
Don't wait! Prune your stone-fruit tree now, and ensure a healthy winter
Many fruit trees are pruned in winter when they are dormant, in anticipation of the burst of energy that comes with spring. Yet established stone-fruit trees – plums, cherries, apricots and others in the Prunus family – should be pruned now to prevent them contracting silver leaf disease. Transmitted by spores active in the autumn and winter, and which infect trees through open wounds, this fungal disease can cause leaves to turn silver and lead to whole branches dying back. Pruning in summer is also prudent given that bacterial canker can find its way into a susceptible tree during the colder months of the year. Any wounds caused by pruning now will have plenty of time to heal before the seasons change. The aim when pruning a plum tree is to manage its size, shape and health, so start your cuts following the three Ds principle. Any branches that are dead, damaged or diseased should be the first to go. Once those are cleared, look for any that cross one another, and carefully prune those as crossing branches can rub, causing abrasions that can let disease in. The next goal of pruning plum trees is to take the growth back by approximately a third, while creating or maintaining an open, goblet shape, which is ideal for air flow and vigour. You can do this by shortening branches, removing vertical ones ('watershoots') and addressing congestion, especially at the centre of the tree. You can also remove any suckers that have appeared at the base. Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion Make confident cuts using clean, sterilised equipment, whether that's secateurs for small chops or loppers and pruning saws for more substantial cuts. Determine where to cut by finding an outward-facing bud that's pointing in the direction that you want new growth to appear from, then make a sloped cut above it. While you're doing this, step back regularly to look at the tree as a whole. It's very easy to get fixated on sorting one section before realising that it's all become lopsided. Cuts made now will determine the future shape of the tree, so it's worth doing this job when you have time to be discerning. The point of judicious pruning isn't merely to have more fruit – although that is a huge bonus – but also to ensure the health and vitality of trees so that they have long, fruitful lives. And if you inherit an old, neglected plum tree, you can use this approach to rehabilitate it. If it is done patiently and steadily over a few years (as aggressive pruning can be detrimental), it is possible to restore an abandoned tree to its former fruit-bearing glory.
