Fruitnut, I don't think spinosad is reliable on aphids. Rhizo, I have also used the water method but these green plum aphids tend to cover the whole leaf and its too hard to spray them all off with water. The ant/aphid relationship varies a lot from type to type. The black aphids on my cherries are closely tied to ants, the ants are the ones moving them around. I also see ants moving these green aphids around but am not as sure how important they are to the spread since I see more green aphids with wings. So I would not rely on tanglefoot as the only control, especially at this point when your tree is covered with them. It is something to try next year a few weeks in time before you saw all the aphids this year. I didn't mention my biggest control above: I just prune off all the tips where they are. They show up about now and this is summer pruning time so it fits in perfectly. The few aphids left are often enough for the ladybugs to handle. I pruned a few days ago and there are almost no aphids left at this point. Scott

I have been very successful in reposturing plants by transplanting them. Granted, if you correct it and not change anything else that is affecting the growth, it may simply grow in the same pattern but that may take quite a while with some plants. If you turn it 180 degrees around, then the old growth will be pointed out the opposite side and the direction in which it was growing will get new growth and balance the plant eventually. I had a Tinkerbell lilac that was growing strongly on an angle reaching for sunlight from shade. After trimming back the shade, I dug it up and replanted it almost in the same place but with the branches standing up and the root ball on about 45 degrees from its original orientation. It is going on 5 years now and it has been happy ever since. I had a Mountain Laurel that was starting to block a walkway. Rather than cutting it back, since it is such a slow grower, I rotated it. It too is very happy as am I. One more, I have a white azalea that was only one long circling branch. I replanted in back of a red azalea and now I have the red in back and the white reaching around to the front. They have been happy for 20 years now. OTOH, If you don't turn it then, in the spring, I would chop the major limbs that are out of balance.

Some of you knew that I worked 24 hours on and 24 hours off taking care of an Elderly (OLDER than me) lady in her 90's. She is not doing too well and so they let two of us go. She's not expected to live much longer so it's probably a blessing in disguise. At my age and where we live there really are no jobs. Around here just having ANY job is considered a good job. Unless you are familiar with rural areas you probably can not relate to this. LOL I just have to put my faith in the good Lord that he will provide me with whatever I will need. Notice I didn't say with whatever "I Want". Karyn, you are OH SO VERY RIGHT. It is a perfect time to be off for awhile and work in the yard/fields and so forth. I have a bunch of trees that the wind blew down that need to be pushed up and burned and lots of little odds and end jobs on the place to tidy up. The only bad thing about that is that it will be much harder work, and NO PAY. LOL Well I guess the pay will be having it cleaned up and looking better. Now if these Thunder Storms would move out I could get back to planting my daffodils and so forth. Needless to say, that dumb hole (New Pond) in the front yard is full of water AGAIN. I'd love to be able to get the darn liner in it before NEXT WINTER. LOL We're suppose to have another round of storms at the end of the week. Go Figure. This is exactly what happened last year and it rained EVERYDAY for over 2 months here. I pray we're not in for a repeat of that. Didn't mean to write a book, but I always feel better when talking about plants and so forth. Happy Gardening Ya'll and please pray for me. Love Marian

Goodness!!! I read these posts and admire the photos of all the lovely plums, they are beautiful to look at and inspire me to try grafting some new varieties. Matt, do you wrap your scions before burying them? Does this work better than in the cold room? I have a Toka that I bought this spring on "mystery" rootstock that I am assuming is not hardy for this area as it came from a big box store not a local nursery. I have some native plum seedlings ready for grafting so I want to take some scions off of the Toka incase it doesn't make it thru the winter. I would love to store them outside if I could. At what time of the year do you start cutting? I read that they do it in Feb.