Plant Doctor Tom MacCubbin offers advice to Orlando-area gardeners about peach trees, plum trees, birch trees, desert roses, grapefruit trees, fall potatoes and sod.

After pruning all plum trees, mow any grass and weeds down hard, virtually scalping the surface. Be sure to attach a catcher so all debris, especially diseased windfalls, is collected.

A desire to tidy up the garden and do something outdoors — even before anything much is really happening there yet, garden-wise — drives many of us out to prune ...

These trees will fruit well whether or not they are pruned. But if the trees grow too tall the fruit is high and hard to reach, and when there is unproductive wood they don't tend to crop reliably.

PRUNING plum trees is essential to maintain a fruitful crop each year and timing it right is the key to keeping a steady harvest - but as the harvest season comes to an end, when should you be ...

Q: We have three old plum trees (delicious plums) that seem healthy but are growing more and more little shoots from the root system. To mow the lawn, I have to cut back these shoots.

When pruning large limbs off trees, begin with an undercut first. This is a cut from the bottom up, about one-third of the way through the limb, 4 inches or so away from the main trunk.

Summer pruning: Some trees heal much better when pruned now. ... Plum trees can be kept smaller if you summer prune and you’ll still get plenty of fruit developing on the older spurs.