Plum Season

I planted four fruit trees a couple years ago and they've been maturing nicely except two have run into some problems. First is the Bartlett pear, which hasn't produced any mature fruit. It keeps getting fire blight and a landscape friend told me that it was due to the ornamental street trees, which are in the pear family. He suggested moving it farther into the yard except that there's no real room for it in the plan so I may have to get rid of it.

The other tree that's been problematic is the Santa Rosa plum. It's been growing extremely fast relative to the other trees and possibly too fast. A month or so ago one of the major branches broke, tearing at the joint to the main trunk. It must have had a weak joint, and as the branch grew heavier it tore at the seam.

I figured it could survive that damage and the other branches appeared fine. The tree was filling with fruit and looking good but then another branch went. Maybe I let them get too long and with the additional weight from the fruit it tore again at the seam with the trunk.

Now I'm not so sure the tree is worth keeping. The tear occurred near the other one making for a narrow section of the trunk. I'm considering removing the plum and pear trees and then replanting a new plum tree that I can prune more diligently as it grows. We were able to save a lot of the plums from the broken branch and the rest are maturing quickly. Looks like we'll be making plum jam this weekend.