Red and Green fruiting Plum

[daiviet_nguyen]

These pictures were taken on 21st/November/2010:


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This tree is a graft of red and green plums. These two were just seedlings that found
in the garden of the rented house, during my uni days. There were several mature red
and green plums in the garden, whose fruits were all edible and were very sweet.

Like all of my early trees, I did not do very good job with the roots. And it is still
visible in the above pictures.

My greatest regret with this tree was that I chopped off the green one. There are only
two lowest green branches left. The red one if the dominant now. It has been fruiting
consistently in the past six years, and the fruits are very sweet as well. The green
branches have never beared any fruits.

It has been in my father's garden in last several months. It has been growing freely
since.

[kcpoole]

now that is real nice
Pity about the roots tho, Any chance you can get to fix it will be good. Maybe lower in the pot and try to promote some more by the toothpick method?

Ken

[Matthew]

there are hundreds of these all around the property. I have collected a few and there growth rate is QUICK. Some are very sweet others yuk. I have both red and green varieties here. Give me a couple of years i might hace some nice ones. Apart from the roots i think your tree is nod bad at all and will get better

[daiviet_nguyen]

Hi Ken,

I am working toward lowering the roots down. Last season, I cut off a big surface,
scar is still visible. Next repoting season, I will cut short the one that is left
there. By then, I will be able to lower it down a bit. The pot is just the right size
for this correction.

Hi Noah,

I am looking forward to see your trees. For bonsai, I think how the fruit taste is not
important, rather it is a bonus. Regardless of how they taste, the flowers and the fruits
still look real good on the bonsai

Best regards.

[alpineart]

Hi Daiviet , i like this tree the contrast between red and green is quite unique and yes the plums are a bonus . Have you considered thread grafting some of the green foliage up the red trunk . With the right balance of differing colours in the foliage it would become very unique .Cheers Alpineart

[daiviet_nguyen]

Hi alpineart,

Thank you for your suggestion It had never occurred to me that I should do
thread grafting of green branches onto this tree. I will try to do it.

I went past a green plum today, its fruits are actually green too Just
imagine the mixture of red and green fruits on the same tree.

Best regards.

[alpineart]

HI Diaviet , i believe you would have some very special with differing fruits , unique in every sense of the word . Good luck with the thread grafts .Cheers Alpine

[daiviet_nguyen]

Nearly two years have passed... time flies...

Keeping alpineart's advice in mind, but I had to wait until 11 months for a suitable green branch to develop.

On the 28/10/2011, I carried out the graft of the newly developed green branch.

On the 31/12/2011, I checked and saw the union has heal. I cut a wedge on the donour's branch in prepration for a complete "amputation" !

After cutting the wedge, I saw that another graft above the current graft would still improve ramification also. I cut a channel in the trunk, and tried to put the same current donour green branch up, the wedge snapped, thereby a complete separation of the just-healed graft!

I proceeded to carry out the second graft.

The newly graft branch displayed symptom of weaking afterward, existing leaves slowly withered and fell off. Starting with the ones closer to the trunk. I cut off a few as well. But stabilised and survived somehow. On the 24/01/2012 new leaves came out for the first time.

The following photo taken on 26/08/2012 -- the grafted branch has three flower buds:


View First Grafted Branch

This tree does not have a lot of flowers this year. It looks a mess because I have been letting the branches growed unchecked. And I still had not done anymore roots work.

Early August/2012, I checked and the second graft has also healed.

The challenge with this species is to keep the branches from dying off!

[alpineart]

Hi Daiviet , mate my collected wild plums tend to get quite a lot of die back for some unknown reasons . This will be a very nice contrasting tree when you have completed all the hard work . Look forward to seeing it in a few more seasons .

Cheers Alpine

[daiviet_nguyen]

I cannot remember when I cut off the second grafted branch, but this photo was taken on 17/08/2013. It looks healthy:


View -- Second Grafted Branch

[daiviet_nguyen]

The following photos were taken on 24/08/2014:


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The two grafted green branches actually had flowers, but hard to recognise in the photos.

[daiviet_nguyen]

The following photos were taken this morning -- 17/11/2013.


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View 3 - 3 -- Can you spot the only green fruit?


View 3 - 4

[Meagi]

Hi David
Really like this tree . I am just starting to explore the fruiting variety .
This gives me great hopes of nice trees are available
This one will be a stunner in no time
Cheers

[Meagi]

Gosh let me rephrase that ( I was looking at old pic )
This tree is amazing super tree I love it !!!

But think it would look better on my bench

[lenlen]

Love the look of this tree! Going to read up on fruiting ones now..