My Victoria Plum tree has only ever produced plums in very small quantities, I have had it 3 years this being its 4th summer, it’s a patio tree although it grows a lot stronger than I’d have expected when buying it 4 years back.
It’s never flowered before the leaves are fully open, it usually flowers a few weeks later, I’ve only had 7 plums last year, 5 the year before, and nothing at all in its first year, generally the flowers that have arrived have all turned into Plums.
This year it’s gone crazy, flowering before the leaves appear, and it’s covered, hopefully I get a load of Plums this time but I’ll not hold my breath given my Golden Gage was like this last spring and only produced 5 gages.
I’ve taken no chances with both and cross pollinated both trees with each other using a small paint brush, time will tell if this has effect as they’ve not cross pollinated previously.
Both growing tubs against a trellis.
Has anyone with Victoria Plum trees experienced mass flowering like this, and if so, did it end in a heavy crop?
Picture 1 is the Victoria Plum, picture 2 is the Golden Gage
by JW3252
1 Comment
This is pretty normal for most established plum trees in my experience, although Victoria is know for particularly heavy blossoming and subsequent fruit set.
You will likely need to thin heavily. Victoria is very prone to setting far too many fruit, which can cause branches to break, and will also exhaust the tree and cause it to take a rest from fruiting next year, pushing it into a pattern of biennial bearing where you get a heavy crop one year, and barely any the next.
I usually remove some 80-90% of the fruitlets in June. Thin to one every 4 inches or so.
Last year was especially bad. The fruit were hanging from the branches like grapes. I had to remove about 95% of them, and I still left too many on, really.