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Confusing advice in GW mag
Grannybee
Posts: 332
On page 60 of the January mag, there is some confusing advice. There is a caption to a picture which says prune plums in winter and the exact opposite advice is given almost next to it in a bullet pointed list! Which is correct?
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The caption is a mistake. Never prune plums or any other stone fruit in winter as you risk them getting a fungal disease called silverleaf which can kill the tree. Prune in summer.
Someone pointed it out the other day - the magazine team have been told - I imagine they''ll print a correctiion/clarification in the next edition or asap.
Last edited: 30 December 2016 19:53:31
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Thank you all for the update! I missed the original comment on the forum.
Though what puzzles me is that the hedges round here which have lots of wild plums and greengages in them are cut at what is supposed to be the worst time for pruning them and yet the hedges do not seem to get Silver leaf.
Sheer bdooly-mindedness Berghill ............... they're wild. If someone had paid good money for them they'd turn up their toes at the first sound of a Bushwacker
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Wild ones are probably more resistant than the highly selected varieties we grow as our fruit trees, Berghill. That's what I'd assume, anyway.
Yes it's a curious fact of gardening, that you make a small mistaken snip with something you paid a fortune for & it's as dead as a dodo, but you cannot kill something you don't want no matter how many times you cut it back, dig it up or stamp on it!
Hello everyone,
Many apologies for the mistake in the January edition – it's entirely our fault. Plums shouldn't be pruned in winter, but we'll be clarifying the advice in our February letters page.
Many thanks,
Kevin
Kevin Smith
Deputy Editor
BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine