Greengage Plum

[orchidsarefun]

Anybody grow these ? I have had mine for about 8 years, and have never had a plum ! Lots of blossoms, maybe 3 or 4 plums that soon drop.
Any tips ? I keep saying - when I stand next to the tree - that I am going to chop it out if I don't get fruit - and all I get are impressive blossoms. Its supposedly the self-fertile type....
Pic taken today

[Leafmite]

We have a plum tree, just not that one. We found that if we are lax in spraying the trees or spray with Sevin, we have fruit drop. We use a pre-emergent oil in the spring and, then, after the blossoms drop, we spray all the fruit trees every two weeks with a fungicide (captan) and pesticide (malathion) combination. The plums, apricot, sweet cherry and peach tree all need to be sprayed for the borer moth which is a clear-wing moth that lays eggs on the bark of your tree. The eggs hatch and the larva bore into your tree and eat the living tissue under the bark, eventually killing the tree.
If you do all of this and the tree doesn't produce fruit, it might just not be a type of tree that is capable of holding its fruit well if conditions aren't perfect.

---------- Post added at 10:01 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:58 AM ----------

The other problem might be a lack of bees in your area or pesticides in the area when the tree is in bloom (lawn care companies sometimes spray the lawns). To help with our trees being pollinated, we have spring bulbs to bring bees to our yard. I have all kinds of berries so I try to keep flowers blooming from just after the snow melts until the first frost.

[orchidsarefun]

we only have 2 fruit trees - one is a peach, also self-fertile, and we literally get bushels of peaches from it. I treat it with a systemic insecticide 1x after bloom drop. The plum is also self-fertile - so don't need pollinators. Its just that we don't get fruit........maybe this year will be better. Ha !
I think you have to go through such a rigorous spraying programme because you have more fruit trees in the area/neighbourhood. As far as I can tell the only other fruit trees are in a far neighbour's yard and he has an Asian pear and a peach tree. I do keep a sharp look-out though for pests and diseases. Japanese beetles are just generally a curse in the whole garden.

[Leafmite]

Sevin spray takes care of the Japanese Beetles. I hate to use it but one year, we had a terrible infestation. We sprayed all the trees and the grapes with the Sevin. The beetles died very quickly. More kept coming to replace them and they died. In all the years since, we have seen very few. I just knock the ones I do find into a jar of soapy water.
People that graft and raise the trees or own orchards are usually experts and when we have a problem, we usually call either a local orchard or one of the places from where we bought our trees. We were pruning our trees wrong until one of the local orchard owners explained the proper way to do it. We've also gotten great tips on safety, sprays, and everything else.

[orchidsarefun]

well its looking good for the plums, the one in the photo is the largest they have ever grown before dropping........all 3 of them last year
And its still hanging in there, despite a bad hailstorm the other night.
But.....we are not going to have peaches. The tree didn't bloom, and in fact about 3 others in the neighbourhood didn't either. So the weather was weird enough for the plum, but too weird for the peaches.

[Leafmite]

Congratulations on your plums! Perhaps your plum tree was just not quite mature and that is why it has dropped plums in the past? This spring has certainly not been helpful. When it was starting to warm up, the peach tree's buds looked very good but when the cold spell came, it was badly affected. I am not sure the tree is going to survive, poor thing. It looks pretty bad.
I think our plum tree will be skipping a year and I'm not sure about the sweet cherries. We will likely have the sour cherries and apples, though, and, of course, all the berries.
Gardening is like that, though, so dependent on the weather.