Chopping Prunus mume?

I have a Prunus mume in the ground with a 3.5" dia. trunk. The previous owner did a trunk chop on it too high, in my opinion, and now it also has a broom type look to it that doesn't fit. The taper doesn't work and the trunk is too long for my preferred proportions.

Getting to the point, has anyone chopped a 3.5" dia trunk Prunus mume below the branches successfully and if so what season? I'm thinking of chopping 3 to 5" above the soil line but the branches don't start until about 10" from the soil line. Overall the tree is about 18" tall. I don't really see any dormant buds in my proposed chopping area so I'm a little hesitant. The trunk still looks smooth (youthful) with little to no bark flaking yet. It is in the ground and has some of the best nebari of any of my trees so I want to do the right thing. I was also thinking of thread or approach grafting a branch or two on a lower section of the trunk so when I get to chopping there would be guaranteed buds there. Can I do without grafting?

I'm not sure when you would be best to do members of the Prunus family, my guess would be now actually, especially in TX. But wait till a couple of the other guys with more experience with prunus chime in, they can be tricky.

in the mean time this is in my opinion the Trunk chop Bible.
http://www.evergreengardenworks.com/trunks.htm
-Jay

Now may be the time but I may hold out until early spring because I still see green leaves on the tree that don't look like they will be dropping until a little later.

I have actually had a link bookmarked for some time now and it explains quite a bit how to do this. The only thing I didn't see was anything about chopping without branches or buds below the chop mark. If Prunus mume is resilient enough to pull buds out of fairly older wood than I may be in the clear but I'm not going to risk it until I hear proof of it being done successfully.

Here is that link:
How to chop Prunus mume

Discuspro wrote:Now may be the time but I may hold out until early spring because I still see green leaves on the tree that don't look like they will be dropping until a little later.

I have actually had a link bookmarked for some time now and it explains quite a bit how to do this. The only thing I didn't see was anything about chopping without branches or buds below the chop mark. If Prunus mume is resilient enough to pull buds out of fairly older wood than I may be in the clear but I'm not going to risk it until I hear proof of it being done successfully.

]

Chopping beyond all branches to induce back budding is a common practice its just a matter of proper timing. And i forget your in sunny Texas and you still have leaves on your trees, mine are LONG gone up here sorry about that.

Thanks for your advice. We may be getting our first freeze for the fall tonight so leaves should start turning and dropping soon. Our winters are laughable but we get snow every now and then. Our springs are usually a few days long then our summers are fit for the devil! Prickly pear cactus grows on concrete here if you let it, just kidding although it will grow anywhere, but it is hard to keep anything but natives from scorching mostly.

I'm going to go out on a limb and give a pecan seedling a go for bonsai. I'm going to do the cd-tourniquet method on it, since they have huge tap roots, and see what happens. Would be awesome to have little pecans on a bonsai and they grow like weeds around here so I would think I'd have the best chances with one.

Discuspro wrote:

I'm going to go out on a limb and give a pecan seedling a go for bonsai. I'm going to do the cd-tourniquet method on it, since they have huge tap roots, and see what happens. Would be awesome to have little pecans on a bonsai and they grow like weeds around here so I would think I'd have the best chances with one.

Nut trees are notorious for their tap roots, of all the trees I have collected from trunk reduction, the only ones that have died have been nut trees, White oak in particular, because I had to sever a tap root, thats why they are best grown from seed, the tap root can be cut at the seedling stage and then fine sideways growing roots can be encouraged. I did that with my Albizia three years ago.

What I would do if I had a burning desire to work with a tree like a pecan would be to try and air layer a nice branch off of one, and go from there as my stock.

BTW I have family north of Austin and have lost count how many times I've Been to TX, 110 in the shade as I remember it. My yankee blood is to thick for that climate, I just shut down.
-Jay

I also want to know from someone experienced with Prunus mume about how they behave with trunk chopping into wood that has started to roughen up.

- S

I'm a very expierenced grower of prunus spinosa,which is similar in all respects to the ume,trunk chops with no live left result in almost certain death,even when the tree is in the ground.I have learnt this the very hard way.
Have a look at peter teas bonsai blog for a big article on ume in the last few days,probably the best bonsai blog out there

I enjoyed reading Peter Tea's blog on Ume's. He confirms what Lee said; don't cut/chop if there are no leaves; they don't bud back on any wood (old or young) unless there is a leaf/branch below the cut. Thanks for the tip!
Todd

hey,

• mumes are unpredictable in terms of back budding. a major chop runs the risk of back budding occuring at the roots or nebari and not where you want it to ie at the trunk chop. however one may induce back budding by pruning back heavily to the last fews buds of the previous year's growth in late autumn of that year ( ie pruning back on 2011 growth in autumn 2011 ). pruning in spring, esp. after flowering is less likely to induce back budding. of course one sacrifices a crop of spring blossom but i assume that's not important in this case. prune heavily in late autumn for two or three consecutive years and you'll most likely end up with heavy back budding. this is a common practice with mume nurserymen in china. hope this information proves to be of help.