Definitely. Working on getting mother plants established for propagation material this year.
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what’s good conditions to plant these on? I’ve got mine in full sun by a fence, they seem to die back over winter with tip freezes and never flower. I have 3 beach plum and one “native plum” and none have even flowered. oldest one is 5 or so years. all are only knee high
this one is 2 years old if I recall correctly. no idea what to do with them- move them? call it quits?
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I know it’s been a while, but if you’re still selling seeds I’d love to buy some. I have 6 BP’s from local MA nurseries/Native Plant Trust/Essex, MA and Hollybrook Orchard. No idea what variety. But I’m very interested in growing.
This thread has been very informative!
Thanks!
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They are not for sale, they are free. You just pay postage. I actually just planted the last of my hopefully viable Beach Plum seeds this past weekend. A little bit late, but hopefully not too late. My “best” Beach Plum is absolutely loaded with fruit this year. It is significantly weighed down and preventing the grass from being cut around it. I won’t have seed from it or my others until August at the earliest. I’ll be happy to send you seed then. I’m inclined to send it before I stratify, because I think the seed has been getting Frozen in my fridge over winter, reducing the germination rate. Better you should stratify it than me, at least until I get a dedicated mini fridge where I can better control stratification temperature. Stay in touch here and I will post when I have seed.
-Pete
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I’ll definitely follow up 
thank you!!!
So happy to find this thread. I’m looking at planting hedgerows of mainly native plants. My primary motivation is the ecological benefits, but if I can get a tasty yield too, even better. The beach plums I’ve trialed are doing really well- I’d love to include some improved varieties and will follow up with this thread. I have a lot of space so maybe I’ll be able to contribute something myself one day.
I also just visited a farm that’s growing hazelnuts in hedgerows. While establishing they planted them with different low growing perennials as a kind of green mulch- some seemed to work quite well. Planning to try the same.
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Checking in with the BP enthusiasts as my trees are just starting to ripen up here in southeast PA.
Has anyone to whom I sent BP seeds had any luck with them? I have had exactly ZERO of the maybe 20 or so BP seeds I planted this year germinate. I did a bit better with my Wild Goose seeds - 3 out of about 12 I was able to collect last year are growing well. Persimmon and pecans are at over 50% Germination rate though I haven’t kept close track of them as I have plenty.
Once the plums come in this year, I’ll send out seeds to those who received last year’s and let you do the stratifyimg. I think BPs may be more sensitive to freezing than the other seeds I grow. Double-dormant? One can hope, but I’m not that hopeful.
-Pete
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Oh, and despite grafting multiple backups of all of my scions on my mature BPs, I lost every graft of Jersey Gem, darn it. If someone here can spare a scion this winter, I’d sure appreciate it!
One or two more days til the harvest starts in earnest… Gonna be busy with just this one tree (plus a small crop on my ECOS tree)!
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I got a DM question from someone here about whether I would have seed or scions this fall and winter. I do not anticipate having any Scion wood quite yet. I actually didn’t get any takes of Jersey Gem, so i’m hoping someone here can supply me with a stick or two at some point. I am already harvesting seed this season and plan to send it out in the fall, prior to stratification, as I believe I have been having problems with seed stratified in my garage refrigerator freezing over winter and reducing the germination rate. I expect to have seeds from my best Beach Plum which is shown above, Plus a ecos Beach Plum which is also shown above, as well as some seed from a wild goose plum. The wild goose is in my front yard and is probably pollinated either by my beach plums or by one of several ornamental plums nearby. Pollination on the wild goose was really interesting this year in that two or three branches were full of plums , But the rest of the tree only had a few in random places. My hypothesis is a single bee that had already visited one of my other plum trees was probably responsible for each of those heavily pollinated branches, but who knows for sure.
Hope that helps!
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Actually, Jersey Gem wasn’t about takes - I had several - it was about not getting it in the ground; all my potted grafts on Myro died over the winter. I think they actually dried out, as I’ve had no problems with potted myro making it through the winter in the past.
Live and learn. This year is my first significant beach plum crop, mostly from a single tree. Unfortunately, we had the remnants of hurricane Debbie pass through last week as the plums were ripening, and i now have a significant amount of brown rotted plums on my tree. I was waiting to harvest the plums when they were ripe or near ripe, but I’ve completely changed my Approach to harvesting when they are starting to ripen , just coloring up but still crunchy . I then bring them in and let them sit on the counter for a day or two or three until they are sufficiently ripe, then process them. It’s easy enough for me to do as I don’t have a gigantic crop to deal with. Taking this approach also saves a significant number of the plums from the cat Birds which have been pretty much living in the tree the past week. Hope this helps others here. Let me know how your plums are growing !
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Ultramarine is a selection made by John Meader who started from seedlings supplied by the NH state nursery
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I’ve been out on Long Island for the weekend and was doing some Beach Plum exploring when time permitted. Not a whole lot of time to explore, but during a walk down the beach along Shinnecock Bay, I found plenty full scrubby Beach Plum bushes no taller than about a foot, Holding together the dunes. No fruit could be found. Today I spent 15 minutes looking for Beach plums along the dunes up on the east side of Hampton bays, and saw none, though I didn’t look as well as I could have . Since I didn’t want to leave here empty-handed, I caved and decided to buy a pint of locally grown Beach plums from briermere farms, a well known local maker of beach plum jelly out here on Long Island where I am staying. Not exactly what I was hoping for, however I figured they have already done the selection for me and are growing the best local varieties they could find, so why not steal their genetics by buying a pint of Beach plums and saving and planting the seeds. This should keep me busy for several seasons to the tune of something like 75 or so seeds , though we’ll see how many actually germinate. I’m very curious to see what I end up with. The few that I’ve eaten so far have a concentrated flavor, and the Skins are quite tart and slightly bitter. They taste slightly different from my larger plums, though they taste similar to the smaller plums i get off the seedlings I grew from Delaware foraged beach plums. Hope everyone season is going well. I’ll be back here to post shortly and should be sending out seeds from my beach plums and wild Goose plum soon as well. Let me know if you are interested.
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Found this when trying to find info on newer hybrid plums…from 2019 and I havent found an update yet. Wonder whats going on with their program.
They had a beach plum selection so I thought you might be interested.
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NICE! I will reach out! Love the dark color of the fruit - very promising.
Thank you for posting!
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Glad to share!
Might as well ask whats going on with those other selections too…been 5 years since theres been any update on their research.
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Just emailed Dr. Smith for any details he can share. Let’s see what happens!
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This is a good find! I also wonder if there are any updates.
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