How to produce more fruit on early spring flowering fruit trees.
Plum trees are the earliest of the fruit trees to flower, so they can have a hard time of it in cold climates, sometimes leading to irregular or little pollination. Their flowers emerge when few pollinators are out of hibernation. Plus, the flowers can get caught in our wild spring weather. This can mean the crop of fruit fails to materialize at the end of summer. Luckily, there are options — but don’t blush.
My parents have the most glorious plum tree in their backyard, pruned to an elegant, pendulous shape, as the rounded crown makes way for branches that almost drip down to the ground. At this time of year the tree is an absolute stunner, blanketed by a froth of 1cm white flowers that smell softly of fragrant sweet pea flowers. There is only one tiny problem — no plums. The last few springs have been hard on the pollinators, and the flowers, so although the grandkids and I diligently search every summer, there haven’t been very many plums (and I do love my mama’s plum jam.) So, this year I decided to give them a little help in the sex department.
What happens in high latitude and altitude cold climates is that our early spring stretches on for weeks longer, with wild weather, affecting pollination. Cool days and cold nights mean few pollinators leave hibernation. Those that do venture out during the day will squirrel themselves away under the leaf litter at night. Plus there is the wacky weather that can destroy the flowers before they even have a chance to get pollinated. Early spring for us cold climate folks includes snow storms, freezing rain, wild winds, and then dipping into the minus Celsius after plus 15-20C days isn’t unusual either.
This is what I think may be part of the issue with my parents’ plum tree, as the last few springs have had crazy wind storms, frozen flowers, and have been even longer than usual. Their tree has several varieties of plums, at least two of which are biennial, so they only produce fruit every two years, but it has been longer than two years, and we’re lucky if we get a bowl full of fruit. In addition to some extra compost or manure this summer, I’m going to help with the pollination process.
Albeit, this year, the flowers on my parents’ plum tree seem to have pollinated more consistently. This could be for two possible reasons. There has been more wind pollination from the flowers rubbing up on one another, soft breezes rather than roaring winds that knock off flowers prematurely. Plus, there seems to be more small pollinating insects visiting the plum flowers this year.
Nevertheless, as I had planned to anyway, I took about 30 minutes to help out pollination in the hopes of more fruit this year. This is the first time I have ever done this, but I followed all good plant breeders’ tips. I used a fluffy paint brush (imagine one that would pick up chalk dust), next time I would use a much finer brush. Then, I just went around dusting the newly opened flowers. It’s as easy as that — and it only took 30 minutes to do.
After basking in the morning sun with a coffee, I ducked my head into a halo of petals, as the light filtered through and the soft sweet scent enveloped me. This is bliss. Who says romance is dead?
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