Jack's hard work, research and patience have really paid off! We're finally seeing signs of life as new growth have started to sprout from the branches and the trunk itself is looking healthier. What a relief!
Jack and I planted the tree back in April and for about a month and a half, we watered it twice a day, every day. Our watering unfortunately tapered off as the temperatures climbed and apparently even native and hardy well-adapted types of trees for Central Texas can really suffer when enduring long periods of temperatures in the 100's with little to no rain. The plum tree is in a raised bed that we built to house it and some other heat and sun tolerant plants in the back yard along the fence. It slowly but surely lost most of its leaves and by the end of May the tree just looked pitiful. The bark on the trunk and branches turned a charred blackish color and most of the leaves and plums had fallen off. We just couldn't understand why it was in such bad shape.
Jack researched possible causes and talked with Oma from Oma's Garten Pflanzen in Killeen, Texas. She told him that even tough trees need supplemental water during the hottest times of the summer and that as a young tree, our little plum needed a good soaking at least once a week. Now, a good soaking means a soaker hose or a steady drip from the water hose for long periods of time – preferably over night.
*Ok, I'm going to let Jack take if from here to explain what else he did for the tree. It's best to let the guy with the green thumb talk about this part. I'm clueless!*
I tried the full sick tree treatment recommended by Howard Garret, The Dirt Doctor and other respected local natural and organic gardening experts in the area. Every week the trees leaves, trunk and root zone were sprayed with a mix of liquid seaweed, fish emulsion, molasses, and orange oil. Sometimes a drenching of alfalfa meal tea was also added. I also tried adding compost to the root zone of the tree heavily and more recently, added some organic fertilizer, Texas greensand and dry molasses to the bed surrounding the tree as part of our fall fertilizing regimen.
Honestly, I think all of this may have helped the little guy limp along but, only after a really drenching rain of 6-12" and a couple of weeks of considerably cooler weather did the tree bounce back in any noticeable way. We will do the best we can for it over the winter months and will likely cut back some of the upper branches during its dormancy. Hopefully, we will be rewarded in the spring with lots of flowers and new growth. I know that we will be sure that the bed is watered routinely and deeply throughout the summer next year and hopefully it will do much better. If nothing else, it will be a year older and a year tougher after this experience!
*Yeah, what he said! :) Seriously, do you see why I asked him to write that part?! So anyway, we're obviously really excited that our Mexican Plum is bouncing back!
Well, hopefully we'll get our desktop computer back soon so that I can share the pictures of Madi's recent swim competitions and the other events I mentioned in my last post. But, in the mean time, I do have some pictures that I took in Austin on Tuesday while Jack and I were "playing hooky". He took the day off from work and I took a break from school so that we could spend some much needed time together, just the two of us. We'll write a post about it as soon as I get the pictures loaded (onto a different computer and then backed up onto a portable hard drive, of course!).
Have a great rest of the week! The weekend will be here before we know it, thank goodness!
You guys are impressive. The love and devotion you show to your yard is a true inspiration to those of us who allow their yards to..well...not bloom so to speak. What does the molasses do? Just curious. Way to go and Im super pumped your plum tree has been revived!
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