mort
Member
- Joined
- 15 Nov 2015
- Messages
- 2,384
They say the stupid questions are the ones you don't ask and i'm struggling to find any answers so welcome help.
I bought a Victoria plum for my brother last winter and when I went to plant it I saw it was just a branch grafted to root stock that had an extremely poor root system, clearly hacked so it would fit in the sized pot. I planted it with the attention of watering heavily and maybe pruning it down when it began to open so it didn't stress the roots to much. Long story short it never opened all year, never even looked like it would. I gave it the same care as I would for any new tree through its first year but nothing. I scratched both the root stock and graft and they are still green but no sign of any new root development at all (I moved it down my allotment a month or so ago). So my question, is it likely a gonna or could it come back? I've had a similar thing happen before where the root stock was dormant for a whole year and came back the next (although the graft had died).
and my second question while i'm here. I bought a new plum today and looking at its pollination partners I was surprised when its own variety wouldn't pollinate it (the only variety available locally). When I was researching I saw that sometimes varieties often need different varieties as pollination partners rather than their own variety but couldn't find why. So if anyone could enlighten me i'd be grateful. Its partially self fertile so I should get a small crop even if I don't add a partner.
I bought a Victoria plum for my brother last winter and when I went to plant it I saw it was just a branch grafted to root stock that had an extremely poor root system, clearly hacked so it would fit in the sized pot. I planted it with the attention of watering heavily and maybe pruning it down when it began to open so it didn't stress the roots to much. Long story short it never opened all year, never even looked like it would. I gave it the same care as I would for any new tree through its first year but nothing. I scratched both the root stock and graft and they are still green but no sign of any new root development at all (I moved it down my allotment a month or so ago). So my question, is it likely a gonna or could it come back? I've had a similar thing happen before where the root stock was dormant for a whole year and came back the next (although the graft had died).
and my second question while i'm here. I bought a new plum today and looking at its pollination partners I was surprised when its own variety wouldn't pollinate it (the only variety available locally). When I was researching I saw that sometimes varieties often need different varieties as pollination partners rather than their own variety but couldn't find why. So if anyone could enlighten me i'd be grateful. Its partially self fertile so I should get a small crop even if I don't add a partner.