I planted a Methley plum three years ago, and it never flowers. It was a good sized tree when I planted it. I planted a peach, pear, and cherry at the same time, and they all flowered the first year. The plum has grown fast, and is at least 8’ tall with a 2” trunk. It’s in the middle of an open field with all day sun. I’ve never fed it. I have heavy mulch around it. This is the third season of…leaves. I can’t eat leaves. Should I give it another year?
yes. some take longer to fruit. id graft something else to it if it doesnt fruit. it will produce much quicker than planting a new tree. my black ice was a 6ft 1.5in. tree but still didnt flower and fruit for 3 years.
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The methyle I have hasn’t flowered either and is slow growing. Its also standard vs semi dwarf. The shiro I planted flowered it’s first spring and is bigger than the methyle and it’s semi dwarf.
Curious if it will flower this spring.
Or more, this is what Methley does.
Dunno. But is this your field? If it truly a field, why are there not 10 - 15 plums of many varieties planted there?
Yes, it’s my field. I’m a hobby farmer, so I have no use for 10-15 plum trees. I’m not sure what I’d do with all of the plums when they started producing!
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Some plums take a long time. My Italian prune plum of unknown parentage took years, but has been generous since.
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Plums just do not do well here. There are a ton of wild plums that never flower. My Marianna Plum keeled over. The Methley is finely starting to leaf. Early gold is still dormant.
They seem as disappointing as Peaches really.
Probably not worth the trouble.
Once it starts producing, you will need good luck to avoid the frosts, then you will need to spray and spray some more for worms. You will be forever cutting out the black knot.
The good news is that it makes excellent jam.
But I finally gave up and took a chainsaw to the Methley this winter after 15 years due to black knot.
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This spring will be the fourth leaf since I planted a sizable Mt Royal plum bareroot. Tree is otherwise vigorous and healthy. If it doesn’t flower this year I will be grafting parts of it over to something new. I think TNHunter is 7 years in on his and still waiting.
I think that rootstock can play a big role in when you get flowers. There are also issues like chill hours and diseases killing your flower buds. I had a Black Ice plum that was flowering, but not setting fruit. It turned out to be blossom blight.
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I also planted a Methley Plum four year ago. The first two years no flowers, last year I got just a couple but knocked out by late spring frosts, but this year the fourth year I am getting lots of flowers!
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