Why plum does not bloom and how to fix it

Why is the plum not blooming? The plum tree is the most capricious plant of all fruit trees. The plum can grow and even bloom on any, even infertile soil, but the gardener needs to try very hard for the tree to bear fruit. Let's figure out why the plum does not bloom and does not bear fruit.

If for the next summer cottage it was decided to plant a plum tree, first you need to decide on the planting site, taking into account some of the features of the "capricious tree". A prerequisite for a plum tree is areas well protected from strong gusts of wind. Also, plum is a sun-loving tree, and does not accept shade and partial shade.

Planting a plum tree is recommended in the spring. Landing pits are dug with a depth of at least half a meter and a width of no more than a meter. If you plan to plant several plum trees in one area, the distance between them must be chosen based on the plum variety.

So, for example, varieties with a dense lush crown must be planted at a distance of three meters from each other, and for high varieties of plums with narrow trunks and crowns, planting pits can be placed at a distance of no more than one and a half meters. For this reason, before digging out the planting holes, you need to determine exactly what kind of plum you plan to plant.

The planting hole should already be rich in fertilizer. Better to use organic fertilizers such as compost or humus... After the tree is planted, you do not need to fertilize it for the next three years. Once every three years, you can make only a little ammonium nitrate per square meter of the trunk circle.

Proper care of a plum tree has its own characteristics, which is somewhat different from caring for other fruit trees.

The first thing to know and understand is that plum loves moisture very much. Even frost for her is not such a strong and painful shock as drought. Therefore, it is necessary to carefully monitor the weather conditions, and during a severe drought, water the plum abundantly once a week (the recommended dose for irrigation is 4 buckets of water for one newly planted tree, 6 buckets for older plums).

To understand that the plum does not receive the amount of moisture necessary for further growth, one can understand by the cracks that form on the fruits that do not receive water. However, you shouldn't overdo it in the pursuit of moisturizing the plum tree.

The tree also does not tolerate an excess of water. With it, the leaves turn yellow, and the top of the tree may gradually begin to die off.

The plum tree needs to be cared for all year round, even in winter. Especially if you have planted the seedlings recently. In winter, it is advisable to repeatedly trample the snow around the tree, remove excess snow from the branches (while not removing all the snow from the tree). This is done in order not to face the fact that the plum does not bloom and does not bear fruit in the future.

Among all varieties of plums, the so-called self-fertile varieties stand out. They require a special attitude towards themselves. If you plan to plant a self-fertile plum, several other varieties of plum, which will be pollinators, should be planted not far from it on the same site. A fruit tree called cherry plum is considered a good pollinator.

The plum tree is less likely to need other fruit trees in pruning. Only in the first year, this procedure should be given special attention. From the entire crown, it is necessary to select skeletal branches (on which other branches will form in the future) and periodically monitor their condition.

In the subsequent years of the plum's life, it is possible to carry out sanitization only occasionally: to remove damaged or diseased branches.Pruning should be done when the first leaves have just blossomed. This is another feature that distinguishes plum care from caring for other fruit trees.

It should be understood why the plum does not bloom. The fact is that the plum is not capable of producing a regular annual harvest. The more fertile the plum will be in one summer season, the less fruit it will give next year.

So that the resulting crop is in any case not completely insignificant, you need to thin out the plum fruits several times per season. It is advisable to thin out the ovaries twice: the first time to thin out the ovaries, the second time to thin out should be done as soon as the plum fruits begin to acquire a lilac hue.

It is customary to leave a distance of several centimeters between green plums that have not yet ripened so that the fruits do not come into contact with each other as they grow.

The branchy plum branches, regardless of the variety, need additional supports. They can be made from small wooden sticks, some of them should preferably be wrapped with a soft cloth or other non-coarse material - this “soft support” method will help to avoid unnecessary friction between the branches and reduce the risk of plum diseases.

Compliance with all recommendations is a prerequisite, under which the plum tree will surely thank you for your care and maintenance with a delicious healthy harvest and you will forget about why the plum does not bloom.