plums in flower

[miyagiman]

hi all, just thought i would post photos of two of my plum trees that are starting to flower. i know the styling on the hollow tree is a bit wierd, but that is more than made up for with the volume of flowers it produces & the fact that it forms over 100 red fruit each year ( need to reduce them of course once others have seen it to believe it ). dave.

[daiviet_nguyen]

Hi,

I enjoyed the first one very much. I have two of them, nowhere near the first one in quality.

I think you have done a great job styling it like that, I found that plum trees can have branch
die back very easily once you put on wires?

Thank you for pictures

Best regards.

[anttal63]

just beautiful dave. ya off and runnin now.

[miyagiman]

hi daiviet, yes there can be problems with plum trees suffering die back after wiring. one of the reasons is their growth habit. all growth is directed towards the sky with every shoot, once you have wired the branches down, the tree puts out new shoots all along the lowered branch to get its growth back, if left for any length of time, the new shoot will take ALL the energy, reach for the sky & leave the lowered branches to cope for themselves, you have to be extremely aware & either lower the new shoot once it reaches 2-3 centimetres, or remove it completely. they also have a bad habit of producing new shoots at the point where the branch comes off the trunk, when this happens, they take ALL the energy away from the existing branch. it took a while to learn to drive these plums, but i've got the hang of it now. they also like lots of feed, but you have to keep a closer eye on the new shoots. hope this helps, dave.

[Jarrod]

Very nice, really loving it! You have sone great trees, would love to see more!

[Jester]

Hi Miyagiman, well...... as a fellow prunus lover I would like to complement you on a beautiful tree. From the beautiful small flowers to the small leaves,.... the spactacular basal flare (which is almost black in colour) down to the subtle hint of moss. Oh, and the fantastic pot you chose!! I see you have good taste. Please post another pic when in full flower and also when fruiting. I would absolutely love to see it again....and again.....and again......

I've always thought the Prunus family deserves more attention from Bonsai Enthusiasts. I'll take a grand Flowering Cherry over a grand Japanese Black Pine any day. Each to their own though...


Regards


John


P.S. Do you know the exact botanical name for your 2 trees?

[Chris]

exelent post with some great info. Exelent looking trees , how old are they ?

[ozzy]

Bit of an unconventional design but still seems to work, would like to see a pic of it with fruit on.

[Steven]

Lovely Prunus and a very unique backdrop too
Thanks for sharing the pictures! The first one has given me inspiration for one that I am working on at the moment.
Why not upload pictures of them to our gallery section when they are in full blossom?
Regards,
Steven

[miyagiman]

thanks for the excellent response to my plums, i'm working on another somewhat larger tree at the moment & will post a picture of that when done in a few days. i will also upload pictures of progression as the trees go through their different phases of flowers & fruit. not sure of the true botanical name of these, but will find out & let you know when the info comes to hand. the first tree was dug from the wild about 7 years ago & sat in a styrene box with minimal styling for 4 years, i then did a prewire to get the major branches down & around. 2 years ago was its first serious training & wiring session which set the tree to its present shape, then concentrated on bringing the new shoots down as they emerged & extended to 4-5 cm. last year i did the carving & rewired, maintaining shoots again. 3 weeks ago i dewired & wired again to the present image. when i cut the stump extension off the top, i counted 28 rings, this would make this tree about 36 years of age in total.
the hollow trunked tree came from a cow paddock @ a property i was renting about 12 years ago & has been an experimental tree for me all this time. i learnt so much about prunus species from this tree, i know it has unconventional shaping, but it has rewarded me with spectacular displays of flowers & fruit over the years, that i think it deserves a place in my collection as it is. cheers, dave.

[daiviet_nguyen]

Hi Dave,

Thank you for very much for the explanations. I strongly believe that if people understand this, more would take
on this species as a bonsai. I sort of observed the sudden prominent of new branches, like in trident maples, but
I did not realise that they actually kill off the older branches.

In this respect, plums are much harder to train than crab apple for example. I love this species very much simply
because they look manificient in nature strips around the state. One of mine is from two seeds, two years before
last, it gave me about 4-5 fruits; they were as sweet as the ones in the grounds.

Yours are truely inspirations. I think I could take on older plum trees now.

Best regards.

[miyagiman]

yes daiviet, i'm sure you could handle them. they are quite easy once you get a grasp on them. they ramify very quickly as you continue wiring the new branches down into the foliage pad. its incredible to watch a newly wired down branch start to pop new buds within a couple of weeks. stick to the plan on design & you will finish up with some great trees. thanks for all the positive comments, its great to be able to share information. cheers, dave.

[miyagiman]

the storm on the weekend got to the plum blossoms, i would have put them under cover but was out of town & couldn't get to them. they still have some new flower buds that haven't opened yet, so i'll see how they look in a few days. think i'll still get fruit though. watch this space for fresh prunus pics in the next couple of days. dave.

[anttal63]

damn dave thats bonsai aye. none the less i look forward to them in foliage now.

[Jarrod]

Bugger, i think i was lucky as mine hadnt quite opened up so none were lost. Still look forward to all the pics you can take.

Jarrod