[WeedlessWonder]

I moved into my new house 3 years ago and we had a lovely healthy well established Victoria Plumb tree in our back garden...there was some old lifeless looking branches so I decided to trim it back in Autumn 2008.....Big Problem.....last year we had only about 40% fruit compared to 2008 and this year barely 10% of the tree has blossomed with lots of bare dead looking branches......have I killed it off??? Any advice to rescue our plumb tree??

[Ice]

Can you post a photo of the tree showing how you pruned it?  Are the leaves normal?

[SG6]

Autumn is not the time to prune a plum tree, they can be susceptible to infection.
So I am guessing that this is the problem.

If it is silver leaf then there is a problem, as in it is close to incureable. I lost one to it some years ago. The book I have says: "Silver leaf can affect other trees but it is prevalent on plums, especially Victoria."

The silver leaf infection can get in to a fresh cut and there is most chance of infection during the Autumn.

The "cure" is to cut back to a point where the infection isn't present. Problem being where you see infection isn't where it ends, the infection will have already gone beyond that point. As best I am aware there is no chemical which you can spray on to counter the infection. But if you prune well back then treat the cuts with something. I forget the name.

Check the appearance of the leaves, if a silvery sheen, possibly more a slightly silvery shade of green then  . The sheen may only be on one surface, as I seem to recall that that was what I saw on mine.

Lesser problems are bacterial canker, can cause brown spots on the leaves becoming holes and they fall off. Treatment here is to cut off the infected bits, spray with Bordeaux mixture and hope that it is stopped. Seems that they can recvoer by themselves and there after be immune.

Is the tree in a waterlogged area? As this can increase the chance of canker.

There is false silver leaf but I don't think this causes the dieback just a silvery sheen on the leaves, and panic, cure for this to to spray with a foliar feed as the tree is low on nutrients, also feed the groiund around the tree with manure etc to add to the soil.

Sorry but not good news.