Plum tree anyone?

Larry

I have this plum tree in my garden, and tho it was full of plums last summer(our first in this house) I have not considered it as bonsai material.
I hard pruned it in the autumn as it had not been pruned in a long time and was very dense, and I have left some second year stems so we get some plums this year. But then i thought, how about taking a cutting/air layer from one of those stems! Ive not seen a domestic plum tree in flower yet, tho there are plenty of prunus cerasifera around here, and they look fantastic in flower.
Has anyone tried such a plum?

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Will_Heath

Hi Larry,

A quick search on Yahoo for prunus cerasifera bonsai turned up these pages.

It would seem that they would make nice bonsai, here's a picture, good luck.

I have no experience with these, but I have seen some beautiful examples and hope to try one myself soon.



Will

Larry

Oh I used to have a p. cerasifera broom years ago,(see pic) but thats not the species in my garden, which is a domestic plum, the kind you find in the grocers store.

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Will_Heath

My apoligies Larry, I assumed that when you said "prunus cerasifera" that you meant prunus cerasifera.

Either way, I think doing air-layers on a few of them is a good idea.

Will

Bonsainut

Of course--- plum (prunus in general) is a much used tree for bonsai. Go for it larry!

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Larry

Sorry Will, maybe i wasnt clear enough:


I was refering to the flowering of p cerasifera which i see a lot of, and not yet seeing a 'domestic' plum in flower, but i guess theyre similar?

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Larry

This is the plum tree we have in our garden:
Prunus domestica:

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JohnQuinn

Larry, as you start looking into prunus bonsai, be aware that the Japanese frequently call their prunus mume 'plum', although it is actually Japanese Flowering Apricot.

rockm

Prunus domesitca covers a wide variety of cultivars. Don't see why it wouldn't make decent bonsai. You should remember though, that "domestic" plums are cultivated for their fruit, not for their particularly neat growth habits. Any fruit bonsai is harder to keep than a non-fruiting one. They are attacked--even if they don't bear much fruit--by a wider array of insects and fungal infections. You have to spray them with preventative insecticides and fungicides to keep them healthy...

John's right about the apricot...