Our plum hasn't opened a blossom yet, but the buds are way too swollen, so it won't be long. What other fruit do you have.

We have apples and most of the peach and still have pears, although last year they had fireblight, but no more pie cherry. I hope this is the year that the Stella sweet cherry blooms. It's self-fruitful so won't need a pollinator. Need to replace the pie cherry. Am going to get another Monmorency but a semidwf this time. Any other suggestions for either a sweet or a pie cherry?

Hi Dawn, Is a plum tree in need of a pollenator, or can a single dwarf plum tree produce fruit. thanks Sandra

Dorothy,

I had said a few days ago (maybe 3 or 4 days ago) that I thought the darn thing would bloom within 4 to 7 days, but I hoped I was wrong. I even almost got into a verbal disagreement with my favorite "old farmer" who has many types of fruit trees--plum, peach, apricot and cherry. He told me on Wed. that our trees still were not at bud break and were a long way from blooming and that he was still waiting for his buds to "pink" so he could spray. I told him my plum was about to bloom and he said it wasn't. I dropped the discussion because I don't like arguing with him. Then the next day the tree bloomed. I hope he notices the flowers as he's driving by. : )

We have Redhaven Peach, Indian Peach (native), Methley Plum (in bloom) and Santa Rosa Plum (usually blooms a couple of weeks later than Methley, but it seems about ready to bloom too), and one native Mexican Plum in the yard area and several more scattered about the property. We also have a lot of native persimmons.

I'd like to plant some more fruit trees but I never seem to get around to it. I'd like to add a Montmorency cherry, a couple of figs--probably Celeste, Alma and Brown Turkey or Texas Everbearing, and maybe 2 more varieties of peaches and an apricot. I love apples and pears, and my grandmother grew apples (Granny Smith) and my brother grew pears, but I won't even attempt apples because of the overabundance of cedars trees in southcentral OK (an apple tree wouldn't have a chance here) and I won't grow pears because of fireblight.

My neighbor's apricot always produces enough fruit for them and their children, grandchildren, and great-kids and still leaves them enough to give us all we want and even then, there's usually apricots left hanging on the tree because everyone gets tired of picking them. He's had the tree 20-30 years and doesn't remember what kind it is but it is the most prolific apricot tree I've ever seen. I wish I could figure out what variety it is because I'd like to plant that variety. The only variety really recommended for OK is Tilton, but he's pretty sure he didn't plant that one.

The only cherry tree I've seen do well here in southern OK is Montmorency, so that's the one I'd recommend and you already have it. Stella is supposed to be good and I like that it is self-fertile. My old-farmer neighbor grows and likes Bing. Early Richmond is a very early producer with cherries that ripen in late May to early June but I can't help wondering if it might bloom too early here. A good sweet one is Kansas Sweet, but you might have to order it from someone--I never see it in stores or nurseries here. It ripens in between Early Richmond and Montmorency. Two other cherries that are recommended for our state are Northstar and Meteor and both bloom and ripen at about the same time as Stella. If you want another self-fruitful one, you could try Lapins. There--how's that for a few cherry suggestions? I haven't looked at the Stark Bros. catalog to see what they have--you might look there and see if anything catches your eye too.

Sandra,

It depends on the tree. Some plums are self-fruitful and some are not. To make it even more complicated, some are self-fruitful but will produce an even better crop if they also are pollinated by a different variety. Methley is one of those. Santa Rosa is somewhat self-fertile but also does better if it has a pollinator, so I have Methley and Santa Rosa so they can pollinate each other....their bloom periods are not exactly the same, but usually overlap somewhat. Allred is self-fertile and is also very ornamental. Bruce needs a pollinator. If you have native plums nearby, the bees usually ensure pollination occurs just by doing their bee thing.

Dawn

Dawn we lost so many plums with early blooming in TX... one of the sad truths about plums they really need it to get cold and start cold to have fruit every year - not going to happen in OK but I still plan on filling the land here with more of them and worrying each year if they will have fruit or not!

I found in a previous house/yard, that both plum and apricot trees do best north of a building or tree group. The northerly area stays colder longer and thus keeps the tree from budding out to early.

Moni

Moni,

I agree with that. In Texas I always had the fruit trees on the north side and think the colder exposure helped a little as far as keeping them from blooming too early.

Here where we live now, I have them on the east side because it has the best soil--the narrow band of sandier stuff. As I add more fruit trees, though, they are going to go on the north side where they clay has slightly lighter composition than the rest of the clay around the yard.

Mitch,

I know. Even with the right varieties, a crop is never guaranteed. I am going to try to plant some Oriental plums that mature later than the American ones so I can spread out the harvest a bit. I need to do the same thing with peaches and both OSU and TAMU have lists that show which trees ripen in order so you can plan to spread out the harvest.

As it is now, the peaches and plums I have ripen in June when the tomatoes are at or nearing their peak, as is the sweet corn and sometimes the cucumbers. It makes for some long days of harvesting and putting food by. On the other hand, a busy day of picking and canning/drying tomatoes or picking/freezing sweet corn is made more enjoyable if you can eat tree-ripened, just-picked plums or peaches at the same time. My peaches are usually ripe around Father's Day, so when my dad was still alive, a big basket of peaches was a terrific way to say Happy Father's Day.

Dawn

When I first moved here, I bought two little dwarf peach trees on a close-out sale. I put them in large pots. My neighbor was working in her yard while I was planting them. She yelled, "Are those peaches?" to which I answered, "Yes". She answered back, "The squirrels will love 'em."

She was right. One day they would have peaches, and the next day they would be gone. I finally just gave up on them. It always amazes me to hear how many people have good fruit crops. I don't think it could ever happen here unless I had a "fruit cage". I would love to have some berries, but I tried strawberries once and had to fight off the birds for them. I could keep them from getting the berries with bird netting, but they would get hung in the netting and die, and I didn't like that either. So I am fruitless.....clueless too, but that's another story.

I HAD a Montmorency cherry, a 25 at least year old standard that had wonderful cherries, especially since DH spread woodashes around it under the dripline every year. Sweetened the cherries up enough to eat off the tree. But right now every branch is broken away from the trunk, tops lying on the ground. I am sick about it. We got no crop in 07 with that hard April freeze, so had an absolutely abundant crop in 08, 1/3 of which I put in the freezer, 1/3 let a friend pick, and the top 1/3 the birds ate.

Now it will be years with no pie cherries. But that's the breaks with Ok ice storms.

I hope you're getting rain. We've had 8 inches so far in Jan & Feb, including the 3 1/2 inches of ice and sleet. It's a relief as our last decent rain was last Sept.

Dorothy,

I feel awful about your Montmorency cherry tree. It just breaks my heart to think that the ice storm got it. I keep hoping you'll post that you've noticed significant resprouting on the poor thing one of these days.

We are getting rain and, as promised, I watched it rain, even stood out in the rain for a while, and would have enjoyed it even more if we hadn't been watching (on the news) and listening to (fire, police radios) the progress of the EF-4 tornado that hit Lone Grove. Then, as another potentially dangerous wave of severe weather approached our end of Love County about a half-hour after the tornado hit Lone Grove, we fled to the tornado shelter and sat there for about a half-hour while the rain and hail pounded us. When we came out of the tornado shelter, the yard was a lake with still-unmelted hail floating in huge puddles. We got 2" total on Mon. and Tues., and 3/4s of that fell on Tues. The rest fell on Saturday when we had a thundersleet storm.

The rain is lovely, but we remain in a D2 (severe) drought. However, our Keetch-Byrum Drought Index, which predicts grassfire/wildfire intensity, dropped from just under 700 points (on a scale of 0-800) to just under 600 points which was a tremendous improvement. I was so relieved. I am not sure our KDBI has ever hit 700 and it was a milestone we didn't need to reach. Of course, fire danger remains very high as long as the grasses are dormant, and we still have had fires almost every day, but the FFs aren't having as much trouble stopping the fires now that the soil has a small amount of moisture in it and live fuel is not as likely to burn. Still, until significant spring green-up occurs, fire danger will be very high (or worse) on almost any day that rain doesn't fall.

Eight inches! I think that here at our house we've had about 2.5" this year, but I am not complaining, because that's a lot more rain than we've had in quite some time. We are normally fairly dry in Jan. and Feb. anyway, so just 2" or 3" in those two months combined puts us at almost "normal" rainfall for the year-to-date.

I hope I didn't jinx us by talking about being at almost "normal" rainfall for Jan./Feb.! It would be sad if we had to go weeks and weeks without significant rainfall again.

Dawn

Dawn -

I made my plums in Texas do double and triple duty... I budded onto the tree two to four more types so one tree would not get ripe all at the same time - it was a really fun thing to do and once done one year starting the next our four plum trees had around 16 types of plums coming off of them.

It was a easy way to get plums we wanted without the issues of tree space. I was starting apples and peaches the same way when we got the notice about the need to move so they got a yard with plums that gave a lot of variety but peaches and apples that are just one type... if they dont cut them all down like most folks would. I had a pear tree we tried this on but the other slips of pear would never make it their first winter so I never got into more then one of them just for that reason....

Mitch,

That's a novel way to increase the harvest if you have limited space, and I guess pollination wouldn't be an issue. I hope whoever lives on your old place in Texas appreciates those trees. I hate the thought that they might have cut them down, but it often happens.

I have enough space here to plant all the fruit trees I want, but just never seem to get around to adding any more to go with the ones we've already got. I get too busy with too many projects at fruit-tree planting time. This year, though, I am determined to add at least a couple more.

Have you planted at fruit trees at your new place yet?

Dawn

I bought two Santa Rosa plum trees last year and they did very well. Now, the leaves are starting to come out with no signs of blooms. I didn't see blooms last year, either, but they were still in the pot. I've planted plum trees at my previous house and thought the blooms always came first. Is it just too early or is there something wrong with these two trees?
Confused,
Rick in Alabama

Rick,

I'm not a fruit tree expert, but I do know that there are several reasons why your plum trees could leaf out without blooming first. I'll list the reasons I can think of, and maybe at least one of them will ring a bell.

1.) It could be the age/size of the tree. It can take young fruit trees 3 to 6 years to start blooming, although some will bloom and set fruit their first or second year in the ground. My plum trees bloomed a tiny bit their first year that they were transplanted into the ground, but only formed a few fruit. The second year they had a moderate-sized crop, and the third year the crop was huge and had to be thinned quite a lot. They've done well ever since, although they sometimes bloom too early and we lose the plums to a late freeze.

2.) It could be either a very warm winter in which the tree doesn't get enough chilling hours or, conversely, it could be very cold late winter to early spring weather which freezes/kills the flower buds before they can open.

3.) It could be soil very high in nitrogen which promotes the growth of foliage at the expense of flowers and fruit. For this to occur though, you'd really have to be using a high-nitro fert. If your trees are in a lawn area, be sure you aren't using a high-nitro lawn fertilizer under their drip line.

4.) It could be severe drought conditions in the fall/winter which leave the tree too dry or too nutritionally depleted to form buds.

If you want to get advice from fruit tree experts, you might want to try the Fruit forum here at Garden Web.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Fruit and Orchard Forum