North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["William C. Garthright" <billg@inebraska.com>]

> But the best option, in my opinion, is to prune to obtain the size of 
> tree you want. Just graft/bud or buy your tree on the common widely 
> available rootstocks and then prune to obtain the tree size you want.


I keep hearing this, Richard, and I'm trying to do that myself, but my 
young plums are so vigorous that it hasn't been working out very well. 
It's really been a struggle. Admittedly, I'm just learning, but even 
with summer pruning, I'm not having much luck keeping them small.

Of course, the late freeze last spring meant no fruit during the season, 
so maybe they were more vigorous than usual. But I just stick a tree in 
the ground and it seems to want to become a redwood.  :-)

OK, slight exaggeration, perhaps. And I'm beginning to suspect that I 
planted my plums on top of where an old outhouse used to be. But I'm 
certainly wishing I'd found dwarfing rootstock when I bought these. I 
figured plums were small trees, anyway, and that I could prune them to 
keep them small, just as you say, but I'm finding that to be easier said 
than done.

Bill
Lincoln, NE (zone 5)

--
This is like deja vu all over again. - Yogi Berra