Questions

I have 3 plum trees, 2 oulins and 1 opal. All were laden with fruit til 3 years ago when the Opal stopped. Then the gages stopped the following year. All are completely healthy with no disease. To my horror I read the fruiting life span is 20 to 25 years which is roughly how old they are. They are medium size in height grown on St Julien rootstock. I decided to take drastic action and hard prune them last summer and now young shoots are appearing on the pruned large branches. Will these trees ever fruit again, say next year or am I wasting my time and have them removed?

Are there any fruit trees that would grow in a new rural garden that is exposed to strong south-westerly winds? I plan to grow native hedging and shelter belts of trees, should I wait till they are established? Or would there be any point in planting fruit trees to give them some time to establish....even if they didn't fruit for the first few years because of the wind?

I have a friend in the country who sowed fruit trees plums-damsons and pears about 5 yrs ago and which fruited well for the first few yrs but she has no fruit this year and wants to know what to do for next year. also her 5 gooseberry bushes which were laden with fruit 2 yrs ago (I saw them) lost all their leaves and no fruit. She would be grateful for some advice

I burn only dry timber in my fire (no coal). I was wondering what to do with ashes? Is it too early to spread around fruit bushes? Should I keep it to spread later on in the summer around bushes or could it be put in the compost heap? Or do the ashes have any great value at all?

I have recently acquired an allotment & would really like to plant some small fruit trees or bushes. There is no issue planting same. I would like a recommendation as to what grows well in north Co Dublin soil & climate, plus where are the best places to purchase.

We have 5 old apple trees and one old pear tree, all 10 to 15 feet high. They have always been good croppers and are professionally pruned every 2 years. In recent years, we have developed a huge problem with Codling Moth. We have used the traps each of the past 3 seasons. The first year 50% of the crop were affected. Last year the percentage was much lower, but it was an enormous crop. This year, the apple crop is much smaller, and it looks like a high percentage are affected again. Some pears are always affected. I understand that most garden insect sprays have been banned. I agree with this, but clearly the Pheromone based glue traps are not working. Any suggestions?