These blooms smell great. I thought you guys were exaggerating but they are really nice. This is my first ume and I have some reading to do. Regarding chops, do they backbud well? As you can see from my photo a couple posts up, several branches need.to be cut back to an inch or two from the trunk. So these trees respond well to that or do I need to look at grafting or something similar? I'll read up on root work, not sure how much I can remove at once. Pic to keep it going. Not too many blooms and they're giving their show and then falling off pretty quickly.
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There’s a pretty specific protocol to follow with Ume to create ramification and make the bloom.
In short:
Ume only bloom on new wood. And they won’t bloom if you pinch them. You have to let the shoots extend. And, they only bloom if you let a leaf stay on the branch.
They also tend to grow straight up vertically.
The procedure is to let them grow out to about 10 inches long, then wire with aluminum while the shoots are still somewhat soft, being careful not to damage any leaves.
Early to mid May, cut the shoot so it’s only about 1/2 as long. Pull off the first two leaves, closest to the trunk. Keep all remaining leaves.
The point of this is you should get flowers the following winter where you left leaves, but you won’t get flowers where you pulled off the leaves. You should get vegetative buds instead. (Ume sometimes won’t produce vegetative buds where there flowers.).
After a couple weeks, remove the wire.
In the fall, you can prune back, but remember you’re also removing potential flowers if you do so.
Winter: enjoy the flowers.
After blooming: cut back to we’re the flowers began. That is, cut back to keep only the nodes where you pulled off the leaves. Wherever it flowered, cut that off. You should get a new shoot at each of the vegetative buds, plus any other back buds the tree decides to do.
Following this protocol gets you flowers and ramification over time.
