Aphid overrunning plum

MostlyBrambles · May 2023

Hello, forum newbie here.

We have a long-neglected garden including a self-seeded plum. It’s tall and spindly (and reaching for light like everything as we back onto a wood and have very large beech trees too) and now completely covered in honeydew.

Predators feel too little too late. Can’t spray it cos of height. Cut back? Combination of any of these? Give up and cut down?

Thanks for your help

Dovefromabove · May 2023

Hello @MostlyBrambles and welcome to the forum 😊

I’m not sure if that’s simply aphid damage … have you seen this thread?

https://forum.gardenersworld.com/discussion/1073426/taphrina-padi-fungus-on-cherry-plum#latest

MostlyBrambles · May 2023

Hi @Dovefromabove and thank you :-)

It could be two things or course, though I’ve done a quick image search for that fungus and it doesn’t seem quite like it. The white followed by sooty spots seems closer to what we’ve got, as the fruits (that I can see from ground level anyway) don’t seem to be brown at all, and while they’re elongated, they’re early and not banana shaped.

But tbh I always have trouble matching what I can see in real life to what I can find photos of!

The answer to both seems to be ‘take off everything covered/infected’ anyway so perhaps it doesn’t matter that much!

I guess the next question is how hard a cut-back a plum can take, considering that as far as I can see, every branch is affected by something…

blacksweetrolls · June 2023

It sounds like pruning and cutting back is definitely in order - you might have to be a bit careful because you don't want to overdo it. But it should be doable - just make sure to take it slow and cut back a bit gradually! Good luck!

MostlyBrambles · June 2023

Thanks, it looks like careful may have sailed 😬 Now I’ve looked closely at neighbouring / overlapping trees, which are way too big to treat in any way, including a laurel that once was a hedge but now looks like something Prince would struggle to negotiate, that whole area is aphid-tastic. Not sure if it’s a particularly bad year for it or our garden is just very attractive to them, but I don’t remember seeing it this bad before.

As it’s at least manageable for us to cut back the plum, we may have to go hard and just hope it survives. It was a daft place for the previous owner to have allowed it to establish itself really, but I like the accidental nature of most of what’s in our garden. Ah well.

februarysgirl · June 2023

I've had a huge (and getting huger) aphid problem on my plums/green gage since around April but the fruit is all perfectly fine. Ladybirds and a good pruning in July will take care of a lot of it although the ladybirds are running late this year (I resorted to buying some and the larvae but that turned out to be like herding cats). I'm afraid I can't advise about pruning as I've had my trees since they were a couple of years old and I prune them every year.

Aphid overrunning plum

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