Cherry Plum: January 2024 repotting

The Cherry Plum got badly burned by a hot summer day. Which seems to happen regularly with this one: pleasant flowers in spring, burned leaves in summer, limping into autumn. But recently learnings suggest that my old soil mix is the problem, so in January I decided to repot into a perlite/pumice/scoria mix.

Late January with the summer burn. It’s notable that the higher leaves are so much more burned than the lower leaves. I assume this has something to do with the mechanism that pumps water through the tree.

Getting it out of the pot. There’s lots of fine roots in that mix, which is good. So I’m a little surprised if it’s struggling to get moisture.

No pruning or changes up top, just fresh soil and I think some fertilizer.

And as a bonus, let’s have a look from the time of typing.

It’s late March, and I’ve been getting a blush of regrowth on one trunk. There’s also a very small bud opening low on another trunk.

There’s still a couple of months of autumn remaining, so I’m hopeful this can get a normal but compressed cycle before winter.