Theo Markettos wrote:
shazzbat wrote:

Ours did this too. Several branches snapped of and I've just cut them as
cleanly as I can and I'm hoping for the best. Branches get damaged for
various reasons in nature and trees have developed means of coping with
it. I don't know about silverleaf.

Indeed. But one of the ways nature copes is by dying. I'd rather not have
that happen given I don't have a plum orchard to replace it with, or 20
years to wait to grow another (if I can avoid it anyway, I know trees will
die at some point anyway).

So, I sawed off the broken branch leaving a V-shape in the trunk, with one
side cut and the other side left with the natural snap surface, and a small
crack below the apex of this V (and two big side branches coming out of each
side of the V). There appeared to be a family of woodlice and earwigs in
the partially snapped end that I removed, so presumably it wasn't as healthy
as it could be.

I've also sawn off one of the very tall branches that had partially snapped.
Plums seem to have a failure mode where they break, but remain partially
connected with sap flowing (for years, potentially). So presumably they
know how to cope in this situation? I can't see a cut surface so it looks
like the tree has never been pruned (I imagine 20-30 years old).

Having the V-shape exposed, where it can collect muck and water (but
hopefully will drain a bit), should I put some of the antifungal resin that
prevents infection? Or perhaps treat it with something like wax? Or just
let it be? There are other natural clefts in the tree that also collect
muck, but those have bark to protect them.

Theo