hey thanks for checking out my post. i was at a friends house who happens to have a huge cherry plum tree in his yard and i dug one up to bring home and plant last saturday 5/30/09. i planted it and its turning brown. i dug a hole about a foot deep. i have the tree in it and the roots planted with about 4-5 inches left at the top to hold water like a pot when i water it so the roots are about 7 inches in the ground. i fill the 4-5 inch lip it has with water once a day in the morning. the location i have it in gets sunlight from 7am until about 4pm. my question is even though it has died and turned brown will it root and change back to green and about how long will it take?? also any suggestions on fertilizer i should put on it?? here's a picture i took today 6/2/09 so its been about 4 days now i dug it up under a tree this big. i might have the name wrong. take a look at this pic of a healthy one
The tree looks like it is probably dead. Are the branches still flexible at all or are they brittle? Definitely do not fertilize if you find any signs of life. That would stress the plant. Wait until established to to any type of fertilizing. Also the plant is in standing water. I assume you had just watered before the photo, but the tree would not tolerate having its roots under water for very long.
Yes, do not fertilize! I transplanted 80+ year old olive trees and several months later I used 1-2 kg of ammonium nitrate each tree to fertilize before bloom. The trees got stressed and quickly dried out and died. They were not established enough to be fertilized....especially with nitrogen.
i think the tree is alive only the leaves have died so far. i went out today 6/4/09 and bent a branch a little to see if it would easily snap like the dead ones do but it has some flexibility to it. and is putting plant food on it fertilizing it?? because i did put some in the lip then filled it up and let it drain. i have a root the size of a basketball on that thing, if that doesnt catch in the next 6 months i dont know what will. i actually gave out about 15 little single ones only 2 or 3 feet tall with single roots about 5 inches on them to friends and family and all of theirs have dried up also.
and thats not standing water. im sorry i left that out. i fill it up in every morning and it drains within a matter of minutes. heres a picture of how i have the tree set up in the hole. this is just a visual and yes i was really that bored to take the time to make that lol
We have lots of wild ones here planted by the parrots. I would get some well ripened fruit and start one from the stone. They grow very rapidly. The big one in your picture is quiet a mature one. Liz
we have a lot of them in florida because of the birds and squirrels too. i remember growing up walking through trails noticing the red fruits hanging saying to my friends is that plum tree??!! they also grow from the the plums that have dropped, thats why you have to pick them up each year or you will have a yard full of plum trees. and they dont have to be big as the one in that picture to produce edible fruit. the one i have had about 30 plums on it when i dug it up (i made sure to get one that bears fruit). im not going to let it get big as that mature tree because thats a lot of maintence. i do plan on picking up the seeds and throwing them in some nearby fields so hopefully they can get as big as the mature tree.
Just keep doing what you are doing....sounds like the tree is a little shocked. Use some rooting hormone liquid...would'nt be a bad idea. It must be dilluted with water it eases transplant shock...it comes in a 5-15-5 formula.
hey garden lover, the leaves have died and started falling off. is that good sign or bad sign??? the tree is almost bald now with no leaves.
If the branches are still sappy I suspect it will recover. Some times European trees here go into shock due to dry hot weather we have had in the last few years. Leaves turn brown and fall early. Next spring they are fine. Just leave it and keep damp. They are normally as tough as old boots. At least the wild sown ones here grow in all sorts of places and survive. Liz
thats what im hoping for. here in pensacola florida it will be in the 70s until late nov. so im hoping that gives it more than enough time to recover. i just wish it would happen faster because i want to see some of the changes with my own eyes. im actually waiting to be shipped off to basic training for the navy and dont think im going to be able to see it start coming back to life. ugh!! do you know anything about the process of fruit trees bearing fruit??? do there need to be a male and a female within a certain distance of each other??? i recently bought some muscadine vines (a grape) from a nursery here and i had to buy a male and a female for the female to produce fruit. im hoping thats not the case for my plum tree, but now that im thinking about it, the spot that i dug it up at probably had some males and females in it but maybe not. so basically i want to know do fruit trees need the opposite sex like my grape vine to bear fruit.
I think it is cross pollination. Some one will know. Hopefully yr. tree will be happy and sturdy by the time you get back. Liz
i have any announcement everyone. its alive!!! its really really alive!!! i watered it saturday morning and prayed that it would come back to life and i went out to water it sunday morning and there it was!! a leaf!! i said look at this caterpillar on my tree!! tried to knock it off with a stick and said oh my goddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd its a leaf!! lol wow am i siked. take a look. 6-21 i removed all of the dead leaves 7-5 my first leaf!
Told you they were indestructable :) I no longer have them here in garden area because they harbour the pear slug. So the couple I have are down the bottom of the paddock sown by parrots who enjoyed the fruit from a tree somewhere else. Liz
hey liz your garden sounds awesome! do you have any pictures of it? here's a picture of mines, it's still a work in progress. i have my plum tree that will eventually be surrounded by muscadine/scuppernine grape vines.
Love the trees in the back ground. This looks like it is going to be a nice place. I started my garden about 25 years ago when it was an old cottage and a couple of mature trees. Over the years it has become a bit runaway but it is always full of flowers and bits. I don't have lawns but sort of garden rooms linked by pathes and points of interest. We are no longer allowed to water so you either have tank water or your plants survive the summers. Also I am lucky that I have the neighbours gardens as backgrounds that makes my half acre look much bigger. I am also attached to a 5 acre paddock so the vegetable patch area is out there. Growing fruit trees is a risk here because of the possums (marsupials different to US ones) and the parrot and cocatoo flocks. So I kept 3 old apple trees and a fig that is a bit crook so started a new one. I am currently working towards the camera but my car just ate some of the money that was hopefully going towards it. Son has offered me one but it still has not materialised. I will post. I think i might be able to scan older photos and use someof them. Liz
