Plum tree from stone

Is it hard to grow a plum tree from a plum stone or a cutting from a tree. I have tried twice, these are from a very old but healthy tree. I have been taking cuttings from my nanas tree in Nelson and bringing them back to taranaki, they just don’t take off. Oh and I also used some rooting hormone liquid.

Don't know about plums, but my stone grown peach is well into fruiting now, though the fruit is nothing like the parent fruit. Gorgeous taste though. Well worth my nursing it along for those early years.

Have you tried grafting your cuttings?

You would be better to buy a grafted tree with a disease resistant rootstock and then graft a cutting from nana's tree onto that. Then you will get identical fruit, which you won't from a stone.

My stone grown omega plum fruited for the first time this year, gave me two mediocre and unidentifiable fruit after something like 7 or 8 years wait and is less than 2 metres tall. It was superseded by a Fortune some years ago and as it grows in a bad spot, will likely get dug out and binned.

Thank you all, my nana died many years but every time I go to Nelson from taranaki I go to her old house and get a branch off that old tree. Every time I have been and knocked on the door there has never been anyone home. So every time I snap off a good branch to bring home. My nana was very important to me and I spent many years playing under that plum tree, hence the reason I would love to grow a cutting from it.

Grafting isn't hard, and a new tree would be the perfect solution. You might even get someone at the tree nursery to do the grafts for you if you explained the story and asked nicely.

go back in late winter,wrap your cuttings in damp paper towels then in gladwrap and another plastic bag.keep them in your fridge till the plum tree you want to graft to has started to grow in spring time and graft onto that then.not hard to do and have sucess,timing is more crucial to getting results.you could also plant normal cuttings then as well.

Hi. plum cuttings grow well and true-to-type. between June and August when the plum has lost its leaves and is dormant, choose growth that grew the previous season. it'll be smooth, around 1cm to 2cm thick, and may be slightly reddish-brown in colour.

Take pieces that are between 30cm and a metre long, cut on an angle just beneath a bud - a little bump - and just above a bud at the top. push the cuttings into garden soil where you want the tree to grow, or into potting mix in a pot. keep the soil/mix slightly damp. new roots will begin to grow from the bottom bud, and any other buds beneath the soil/mix surface, then in spring, new growth will come from buds above the ground.

Leave two strong shoots near the top to grow, using your fingers to rub off any other stems that start growing. when those two stems are about a metre to 1.5m tall, pinch the growth out so the young tree will send two new young branches out. keep rubbing off growth that's not needed.

Over winter next year, trim off the smallest of the two branches, leaving the other to continue growing, guiding it as it becomes the trunk of your new tree. and you'll have your Nana's Plum Tree growing in your Garden. :-)

Adding. maybe try writing to the people at her house. they might send some cuttings to you if you paid postage, or meet you when you're down there next. :-)