My plums and chums, young and old, are all full of blossoms (and full of pollinators for two whole warm sunny days!), but my 2nd leaf Waneta’s blossoms are missing petals. The tree is vigorous and healthy, looks great, except for the less than full blossoms. Any ideas why? Haven’t seen that before. I don’t think anything is eating them; they just came out that way.
The bloom in the center of the picture looks to have a dead stigma/pistil (female part). The very center of the flower looks dark colored, and it should be long and a similar color as the stamens. That would be frost damage, most likely. Or at least that has been my observation the last 2 years on my plum trees…
So maybe frost/cold damage is affecting the petals too?
Bummer… I’m in the same boat. My plums flowered and drew lots of early pollinators, but only set a handful of fruit because of cold damage we had in early March. At least 2/3 of my flowers had dead pistils.
There have been reports and pics of birds eating petals, too.
@Levers101 - I went out and took a good look at the blossoms and thankfully they are green in the center, but the photo does make them look like they are dark. We’ve had a rare May with only one frost the 18th. But with the strange fall/winter we had there could have been damage previously. It’s a young tree so I don’t expect fruit anyway (though that would be a nice surprise!). But I have hopes for my older trees. Their blooms all look OK and it sure would be nice to get a good harvest for a change (or even a small one!). I hope yours end up coming through with an unexpected crop anyway.
@mamuang - That could be. I know when the apples blossom the Cedar Waxwings appear and have a picnic with the petals. Just because I haven’t noticed anyone eating the petals doesn’t mean they haven’t been sneaking in there.
Sue, awesome that you have intact flowers. Hopefully you get a good set. My crop is set at a handful of plums that are now about quarter sized, and now I need to find some bags so the ground squirrels and birds won’t get to my plums. I need to see if I can find a few organza bags around.
Just realized you are in the UP. I have friends in Houghton/Hancock. I can understand that you might be insulated from some the from the wild temperature swings. Are you inland or near to the coast? (I assume somewhat inland if you are zone 3?)
Yes, we’re inland nearer to Lake Michigan, and in a valley. Though Houghton/Hancock is quite a ways north they have a longer growing season thanks to Lake Superior, and they get a lot more snow.
We had severe wind storm halfway through apple bloom. In only hours, the trees went from full flowers to no petals.