Since I planted it four years ago, it has grown a lot taller than I expected for a "dwarf" tree. So tall it shaded the street half of my veggie garden too much last year, and my tomatoes and peppers suffered. I knew I needed to prune it, but had no idea how to go about it. It was so pretty with flowers in March, I decided to let it go another year. I just wouldn't plant in that part of the garden this year. More fruit would be worth the price of fewer veggies.
And more fruit I got. I think every one of those flowers turned into a plum. The growing plums are so dense they look like bunches of grapes.
Even the little trunk sprouts (that I should have pinched off) are full of plums.
So many plums, I figured maybe this year there would finally be enough that the squirrels would share some with me. Maybe.
So many plums the branches were bending quite a bit with the weight of it all. I didn't mind, I'd just duck for a while. In another month the squirrels and I would have had our fill, and the load would be lightened.
Enter Alberto. Tropical rains plus heavy plums meant the scene I came home to the other day was this one:
It took me a little while to realize what I was looking at. Why is the tree so short? I got closer:
There they are. The tree had bent completely over under the weight of the fruit and the rain.
And on the other side, one of the main branches cracked and split:
I grabbed my loppers and indiscriminately freed the tree from it's weight. I lopped off whatever I could reach, and watched the tree spring back upright. Well, mostly upright.
It still leans. A lot. And it is still really tall, because I didn't lop off enough of that limb before it sprang out of reach. And I'm sure I didn't prune it properly. And I'm really worried about this big crack:
There are still some plums left, but not nearly enough for the squirrels and me.
On a brighter note, the dahlia I bought from the FONA sale (and still haven't planted) is blooming.
It brightened my day, if only a bit.
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