On Sat, 17 Mar 2012 13:58:38 GMT, Baz wrote:

"David WE Roberts" wrote in
:


"Baz" wrote in message
...
I bought a rather battered Victoria plum tree yesterday for £1.99 and
if it
grows it grows. It has broken branches all over but is showing growth
on the remaining bits. The roots are showing growth too.

I have it in soak now in a bucket of water.

I want to give it a good start and would like to know whether to
plant it a
hole with compost or just soil with blood fish and bone (or any other
reccommendations)

I have read that using compost is not advised because the roots would
like to stay in this and not grow outwards into less fertile soil. I
have also read that compost is a must!

I have planted healthy bare rooted trees before, but not a "sickly"
one so I would like some advice please.
Oh, and because of broken branches would it be more prone to Silver
Leaf?


On the broken branch front - I would prune them to leave a clean cut
and paint the cut end with a specialist compound, or normal emulsion
if you have some spare.
Silver leaf is a risk (although I am not sure how much these days) but
anyway it is good hygiene to clean up breaks.
Best time to prune does not apply because the branches are already
damaged.

HTH

Dave R

Thankyou, Dave R,
The branches on this young tree are only at most 3mm(1/8 inch) thick.
Should I still do as you describe with cutting and emulsion?

I certainly will do it if needed.

Thanks again
Baz

On pruning front, my instinct would be to seal the ends. You already
have a sickly tree to nurture; removing any possible point of entry
for problems won't hurt. As you know, we're sort of out of the dormant
time when pruning's best. Although I don't grow plums I think the
principles are common to all fruit trees. I keep a tin of Arbrex I've
had for about 30 years for this purpose though I noticed last year
that it was starting to go hard - must have left the lid off for too
long. Maybe if I open it this year it'll be a solid lump.

I've never tried the emulsion trick Dave suggests. Did a web search
and the results that came back referred to a special type of emulsion
rather than Dulux so perhaps Dave will educate me.

On the planting front, I would dig a sufficiently large hole - the
usual twice the size of the roots thing - then mix what you dig out
with some garden compost, say 50-50 and then add some BF&B and maybe
this new mycr(can't spell it or even pronounce it) fungal stuff that's
supposed to work miracles. (I'm trying that this year to see if the
hype's accurate or not - flamin' expensive stuff so it'd better be
good!)

The 50-50 mix will give the roots the benefit of both worlds to begin
with and by the time they reach what are for them the border with the
next galaxy, they'll happily go on into the unknown (assuming of
course that the tree survives the battering it's already had).

For a couple of quid outlay for the tree, what have you got to lose?

You'll be "on-site" as it were so will be able to make your own
judgement as to whether (and if of course) to allow any flowers/fruits
that form to develop or whether you remove them to allow the tree to
devote all its energy to it's basic survival needs this year.

Keep it well-watered and keep a circle of ground extenting to a foot
away from the trunk clear of grass and anything else for at least this
year.

Let us know how you get on.

Cheers, Jake
=======================================
Urgling happily from the dryer end of Swansea Bay.