Plum and Cherry Pruning

Most of the fruit trees were pruned near the end of February. That was while the trees were still dormant (just as well, given the snowy Easter we had), but we left the plums and cherries alone. These (Prunus genus) are particularly susceptible to Silverleaf infection (a fungal disease, Chondrostereum purpureum), which typically gets into the plant through wounds. Routine pruning of these trees should be left, therefore, until they're in leaf. As this was a formative pruning of a young sapling, we've waited only until the trees are starting to break bud.

I worked round the relevant trees this evening: Victoria Plum, Oullin's Golden Gage, Merryweather Damson,  ornamental plums 'Spring Glow' and Pissardii, 'Royalty' crab-apple and cherry 'Royal Burgandy', as well as 'Summer Sun' cherry in the garden. There's another Victoria in the garden, but I need to decide how to treat that, as it had its leader cut out at about 50cm when we bought it (a garden ago): ideally we'd have a 1-1.4m clear stem on it, but that might be tricky.

They've all had all feathers on the bottom third cut right back, those in the middle third halved, and the top third left. A couple of the fruit trees have a leader that's about at the right height, so we can train main laterals this year.

I also had a play with a plan for the herb garden today.

Possible Herb Garden Plan (© Ian 2013)

It could still change, of course. We're currently thinking of having three interwoven boundaries: one of box, one of euonymus, and one of lavender. The 55 sections then have different things in them. Some of them (the 'step-ins') will be rather more sparsely planted, to allow us to walk through them to get access across the garden. The ornamentals are likely to be plants like gladioli; the obelisks are probably going to wind up being  edible legumes, but attractive varieties. What the herbs are is still subject of discussion: the advantage of this sort of design is that each square can have different soil (enriched, impoverished, gritty, damp) to suit the planting, so Mediterranean herbs (sharp drainage, poor soil) can grow next to roses (deep rich soil).

And as for the roses: we'll probably get four varieties, possibly using the Sister Elizabeth and Eglantine roses we have as one group, with three others: I'd like at least one white rose, and one deep red.

Time to turn some more turf!