Shaping plum trees after topping

kaboo

Hi everyone,

Am looking for some advice on shaping two claudia plum trees that I have in my garden. We inherited them along with the garden when we bought this house some 3.5 years ago. They are against our south facing fence and one of them in a corner of our fence and garage - so not like they have lot of space around. As such they were quite neglected, never pruned/trained in any sort of shape, 2-3 thick stems from almost ground level, and had large ornamental grass plants around their stems. First two years they hardly produced any fruit. Then when I dug out the grass and mulched with compost, the next summer we got a few super delicious fruits. So this year I thought to invest some effort in looking after them and getting them into a good shape. However, I was stupid to follow a friend's advice who I thought has more experience than I have in gardening and topped them in early spring. Now I have branches sprouting out from everywhere. How should I proceed from here? Hopefully I have not doomed them!

kimwp

What shape are you aiming for?

kaboo

I dont have a specific shape in mind. Just after what is the best shape considering the space around the trees and so I can get some harvest of fruit!

-taff

https://www.rhs.org.uk/fruit/plums/pruning

basically you do the three d's, take out dead, diseased or dying...and added on with take out crossing/rubbing branches too...

Sapindus

The standard advice isn't going to help you much because what you have now is basically a pollard.  All is not lost.  Now is the right time to prune plum trees, if you prune in winter they can get fungal disease.  Thin out that long whippy new growth.  Keep ones which are growing in the direction you want to have a new main branch eventually.  Where he has cut back and there is a bare stump with nothing growing out of the end, try and trim it back to where there is a live shoot.  Slope the cut slightly so water can run off.

Thin out, don't cut back, this year at least.  At the base of a branch you are taking out, look for a slight swelling called the "collar" and cut there, don't leave a stump but don't cut into the main branch either.

twopenny

Ouch! You must have had the same person who cut a tree of mine but in my case, without permission 😲
 
Good news is that it will survive. Plums are tough.
Other good news is that it's the right time of year and you have a good 6 weeks to sort it out.
That whippy new growth needs to become branches. It's going to take some thought as to which to keep and which to go.
The ones you keep will thicken and bear fruit.

I found this article simple and easy enough to understand as you make a start. 
But do a few searches for yourself to see what suits and if you can find more info.

https://gardenfocused.co.uk/fruitarticles/plums/prune-care.php

With my plum tree where I've pruned, more whippy branches have grown from the cut very quickly.

Don't worry too much about have you got it right or wrong. These trees are very forgiving. But the nearer you get to right the sooner you'll get your delicious plums back. 🙂

-taff

There's nothing stopping you doing a kind fo corner espalier either if you fancied a go at that...

Farway

-taff said:

There's nothing stopping you doing a kind fo corner espalier either if you fancied a go at that...

I was going to mention that Taff, but when I went to find a helpful link, it seems plums can be problematic.

Unlike apples & pears there is not a really good dwarfing rootstock, and plums tend to be very vigorous & want to go up & up

The upshot of that is lots of young growth going for the sky at the expense of fruit

Solution could be Fan train, not espalier, but it will need attention, not train & forget

It would look nice though in the corner. 

https://plantsbulbsseeds.com/how-to-fan-train-a-plum-tree.html

Other sites are available

twopenny

Here's what happened to mine when I cut back a branch on my plum.
It's sent up a whippy shoot which I'll cut back by 2/3 I expect, it's trial and error on my part trying to keep it down to size.
As you can see plums have popped out just below the cut so you should get some soon. Somewhere.
Until the branches harden and thicken.