Plum and apple questions

[irisgirl]

Me again

I have a James Grieve apple tree. It has had fabulous blossom and great foliage. A few weeks back I found that nearly all of the blossom and most of the leaves had vanished. Only the leaf stalk remains and 4 apples. I wonder if it was bird damage?

My plum tree is going beautifully, loads of foliage and masses of fruit. I'm not sure whether the fruit needs thinning out at all?


Thanks

[Two_Sheds]

The apple blossom won't last long, it soon drops off.

Birds don't eat leaves, but sawfly or something similarly caterpillar-like will. Hang some fatballs for the blue tits and they will eat the caterpillars too.

How old is your plum tree?
They can tend to have a heavy crop one year, and then nothing the next. Thinning the fruit might help to even things out, so you get a reasonable crop every year.

[irisgirl]

Thanks. All of the blossom vanished, no apples. They went when the leaves did over night.

[FB.]

This year has been shockingly poor for pollination of my fruit trees. I had very few bees around this year.
Some of my fruit trees have no crop at all, despite thousands of blossoms on each tree. Most have only a very light crop.
My only apples with a normal crop is Tydeman's Late Orange, Egremont Russet and Worcester Pearmain.
A few others have just about adequate amounts of fruit - such as my James Grieve, D'Arcy Spice, Laxton Superb, Winston and Bountiful.
The remainder of my trees are almost bare.

[irisgirl]

What a shame

I have five apples on the Jamnes Grieve tree and scab on my GD...grrr!!