Plum tree pruning

[Tinker]

I did a stupid thing - planted a 1 year old plum tree last autumn but didn't prune it, so it's still maiden-shaped. I've just read you're supposed to prune them in June - am I too late or should I do it now? How serious is the risk of silver leaf?
Help!

[Odsox]

The risk of silver leaf depends on whether you have any trees nearby suffering from it, including sloe trees.
If there is then it's almost a certainty in my experience, in fact I wouldn't even consider planting a plum tree if I could see silver leaf within a mile of my garden.
It's not just the pruning (although that's a huge open wound on the tree) but even broken twigs due to wind damage or heavy fruit is a way in for the spores.
That's why you should only prune when the tree is actively growing so that it seals the cuts with resin, but if you really need to do it now... you can do the same thing by painting the wounds with a special paint that you can probably get from your local garden centre.

[Tinker]

Thanks - I'll try doing that. There are lots of plum trees around our area, and none of my fellow allotment holders has mentioned silver leaf, so perhaps I'll get lucky. Cheers :-)

[Millymollymandy]

My large greengage has silver leaf and parts of the tree are dying! It's a real shame.

I'm going to get some new plum trees and plant them in the orchard because my 3 plum trees have been planted in the worst place in the garden i.e hardly any topsoil over the bedrock and thus they are very dry - so they start losing their leaves in July/August and even if I have a good crop I have to get the seep hose on them to water them or else I lose the whole harvest!

I always prune mine after I've picked the fruit in August/September because by then there are no leaves on the trees and I can see what I am doing! If I pruned earlier I'd be pruning away the fruit.