"Tis The Season"... With all the great pruning discussion and me finishing up the last of my own pruning, I came across a tree that for the 2nd year in a row doesn't seem to want to get along with me. In fact, I may paint this tree an ugly fluorescent color so the other trees will make fun of him.

Due mostly to help from this forum or reading directed from this forum, I have been increasingly confident in the process or "art" of pruning my trees. The apples, peaches and pears seem to respond to the standard of their respective central leader or open-vase style of training. My buddies mock, beep the horn or stop by with a 6-pack to sit on my orchard benches and enjoy the spectacle of me "over-mothering" my 3-4 yr old trees through out the year. (they never help, but want fruit.)

The last few days I have been pruning the plums and pluots. These trees by far are the gnarliest, crooked, meandering, "dog-hind-leg" growing specimens on earth. When you look down the rows of my small orchard of 52 trees, it looks like a spiderweb of cables, ropes, string & limb spreaders...

The worst of all earthen-kind is a European Earliblue-Prune Plum. That tree lays awake at night figuring out how to grow backwards.

Do you have a tree like this?

I'm thinking flourescent lime green might be his punishment.

The Methley plum right next to him is a stud, and out performs the entire orchard. Wish he'd take notes...

Chad