OK, now that I've got your attention.
Seriously though, we're hoping we might have a tree expert among our Thumbies who might be able to tell us what might be wrong with our Newport plum.
This morning I was looking at it through binoculars to see if I might be able to spot a hummingbird nest. Instead, it looked like there was dog poop all over many of the branches. EEeewww!! But here it is:
These 'growths' are hard & crusty. We also noticed a few weeks ago that the leaves were starting to get a lacey look. Upon closer examination it appears to be maybe insect damage?
This is what the leaves are supposed to look like:
We don't know if the two conditions are related, but does anyone have any ideas? Disease? Fungus? Insect infestation? It's such a nice tree & shades the deck perfectly in the afternoon, so it would be a shame to lose it.
What kind of dog is pooping IN our plum tree?? 
I've never seen anything like it, but it does look like a fungus of some sort. The leaves seem to be affected by insects though. Maybe it's another symptom of a fungus. The color of the branches & leaves look really nice, I'll bet it's a beautiful tree. I hope you can find out what it is & save it.
It sits right in the middle of "the berm" garden, and is a mature tree with a 12+" diameter trunk, so removing & replacing it would be extremely difficult & expensive. We could try pruning away all the infected branches, but that would be a lot of work & I don't know what we'd be left with.
It's absolutely covered with pink blooms in the Spring. We don't have any pics of that because Muskie lost all his pics when his PC died, but here are a couple current pics. It also bears small 1" diameter edible plums, but most of the time the birds get them before we do or we find them dropped & split on the ground.
Linear Mode
