Ray, are there any bees pollinating your pluots? I am cutting mine down either after bloom if no fruit sets or after harvest, I already have a spring satin planted under it. This will be year five and it has only set one fruit, it is a healthy tree but just can’t get fruit to set even with hand pollination.
I know this forum is all about fruit growing and your trees do look good but your overall landscaping is fantastic. Bill
Thank you very much, Bill. We have slowly been adding to our already lovely property. The previous owners put in a lot of the landscaping, but the walk & pick orchard area we did I think in the 2nd year we were here. Previously, it was just a chain link gate that went down into an area we affectionately coined, “the jungle” that only had a dirt path through it, and was very overgrown. We thinned things out, put in all the hardscape, fountain, patio & pergola, and all our fruit trees. I picked this area to start my stone and pomes in, because it’s the “cold sink” area of my yard. So, trying to buy myself a few more chill hours down here. We have a pretty wrought iron gate at the entrance, and another single wrought iron gate that opens up at the other end. We have a local company that does amazing wrought iron work. Labor of love 
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Yes, I have lots of bees and they’re pollinating everything.
Does your Spring Satin set fruit?
No bees on the pluot but there are a lot of insects flying around the flowers but don’t land. Plenty of bees on my apple and flowering quince. I have Flavor Supreme which has known pollination issues and Flavor Queen. I just planted the Spring Satin so too small to bloom.
My pluots and Anna apple are about done blooming and the AU plums and asian pears are just starting. My primocane blackberries are close to blooming. Southern highbush blueberry is done and rabbiteyes are in full bloom. Everything else is just starting to break dormancy.
That’s a little strange because my japanese plums and my pluots are
all blooming at the same time. You obviously are not getting any cross
pollination. I’d still recommend that you plant a Santa Rosa plum. It will bloom at the same time as your pluots and pollinate them.
I had a day off today and worked in the garden. My cherry trees started to show some green on the buds, Danube sour cherry even more so than my sweet cherry. The other early trees such as apricot, almond and Japanese plums are still dormant. The only difference between them is that soil under my cherries is a lot drier than under the other trees (almost too dry!). I can compare because today I dug around many trees cleaning the circles from grass. Generally, it makes sense since the dry soil warms up faster. So my thought here is that if I do not want trees to wake up too early in the season I should water them thoroughly to keep the soil colder. And I would definitely want them to bloom later to escape as much freeze as possible!
I bought the pluot and a santa rosa at the same time. The santa rosa lived for 2 years and then started to leaf out the third year and died. I think peach tree short life killed it. Since then I have replaced it with a AU Roadside and AU Rubrum with a better rootstock.
Tiger
Don’t you have a 2and1 pluot? If so, instead of chopping it down, may I suggest
sending you some Santa Rosa scion wood in January, and top grafting the tree. Then replace your pluot with individual trees from a nursery such as Bay Laurel. I would bet that in 2-3 years you’ll have more pluots and plums than can eat.
It is a 2 in 1 but scale attacked it and did a lot of damage before I caught on to what was happening. The tree never truly recovered, mainly the flavor supreme side. I did graft a methley plum to it to help pollination but I did not notice any difference. I am cutting the tree down because of the scale damage, otherwise I would keep it.
Things are still pretty slow here for most of my trees.
My Satsuma and Beauty plum are still about 99% dormant. Beauty has a handful of flowers on the tips some branches. Satsuma has a tiny leaf or two starting to break out but otherwise no action. However my new apricot grafts are all leafing out. Odd to see all the grafts leafing out and nothing else so far…
Newly planted Arctic Star and Snow Queen and some unknown white peach I have are just barely starting to leaf out, same with my Weeping Santa Rosa that is in a container. Double Delight nectarine is still completely dormant. Pix Zee miniature peach flowered a month ago and has almost fully leafed out and there are some marble sized peaches on it.
Pluots are just about done with their bloom, petals are starting to shrivel.
Methley is not going to pollinate the pluots. You really need the Santa Rosa.
Doesn’t sweet treat pluerry seem to be a monster at putting out growth and blooming? Mine woke up a lot earlier than burgundy plum ( therefore i only see around ten fruit that looks to have set. But it has grown about 5 inches and has one shoot that has grown a little less than 2 feet. Not bad for a fruit tree that isn’t listed for my area.
It sounds like your trees are slow because of lack of chilling. The grafts are leafing out ahead of the rootstock because they got more chilling somewhere else. If they are local wood then cancel that.
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Ahh…once again that makes sense. These grafts were all from new bare root trees that were definitely grown in a much cooler area.
Peaches are really getting close to blooming.
Plums are pretty close also. Olpea how are yours doing?
My Sweet Treat pluerries are very precocious. They’re on Myro 290c (think they all are on this right now). I am going to have fruit for the first time, which is great. I have a Dapple Dandy pluot that flowered at the same time about 3 trees down from my two pluerries, ahead of the Burgundy plum which I planted as a cross-pollinator. It is NOT precocious, despite being on Citation, and is true to form, grows sort of straight up. So, pretty sure the Dapple Dandy works as a cross pollinator for the pluerry. the pluerries need significant summer pruning. They tend to send up these crazy long branches. So, a lot of pruning for the pluerries, they better be worth it. Had one last year from a neighbor’s tree. It was good enough to keep. Will see if the fruit repeats this year for me, in taste. Artic Star is set and in leaf. Snow Queen is slow, slow, slow. Always on the later side for me. Not sure if that’s the cultivar’s tendency or because it’s on Pumiselect.
Borer,
I was out pruning today. A lot of peaches at green calyx. Occasionally I would come across a bud a red calyx. Nothing showing any pink like your photo. Later blooming peaches like Redhaven just show a little swelling.
Discovered one of my supposed Euro plums (Oullins) from Cummins is actually an Asian plum. It’s showing a lot of green in the flower buds, but no white like yours. All my Euro plums still look fully dormant.
What variety peach is that pictured?
I think that one was Gleasons Elberta. A few others were also starting to show color also.
I know most of you are dealing with inground trees… I don’t have a lot moving that wasn’t already moving before it got here this year, but here is my 2nd leaf Spice Zee I keep potted and sheltered in the garage over the winter. I do have a few others I received in January that actually arrived dormant that were potter (Flavor King, Supreme, Queen, and Cot-n-Candy) that are just starting to try to push a little growth. The growth isn’t noticeable enough to really tell on those, but pretty noticeable on the Spice Zee.
Double Delight Nectarine
As you can see, not a lot of delight going on yet. Near the bottom, there are 2 new shoots right above the rootstock and everything else is still very dormant. Is this a sign of low chill or maybe just a really non-vigorous tree? It has been in the ground for a little over a year and is on Nemaguard. Had very little growth last year as a bare root planting.
I was going to move this to a different part of the house but will wait until next year if there isn’t a lot of growth this year.