I’m wondering if anyone here has had any experience with the Broken Heart plum that’s offered on the Arboreum Company website. Here’s what they say about it:
“Discovered in the orchards of L.C. (“Elsie”) Huerta of Tulare County, a spontaneous mutation (sectorial chimaera) of Elephant Heart that provides more flash, sparkle and zip in a fruit than we at The Arboreum are accustomed to … rays of blood red from the center of the yellow fruit, a line of purple along the suture, and the same rich flavor and dense flesh as in the original Elephant Heart. Our favorite plum after Labor Day. Every fruit unique and colored differently, collect them all and amaze your friends! Early – mid September. On Citation.”
Aside from being beautiful, I’m curious what “flash, sparkle and zip” actually means for flavor. I like a good bit of acid in my fruit, but I’m curious if we’re talking acid like a Santa Rosa or are we getting into sour plums range. I know Elephant Heart as a very good plum, but I’m just curious to see if anyone has ever tried one of these. Seems really rare…
We dont have any experience but we did order one in to evaluate. I do believe that it is a rather rare cultivar. There is very little information on it anywhere.
Interestingly enough, I was just handed the scion wood for Broken Heart when the guy from Arboreum dropped off my trees! I’m SUPER excited!!! Of course…I’ve never gone a whip graft before…gulp…
It’s good to hear that somebody have already received their Arboreum order, I hope mine is on its way. Did you request the BH scionwood or they just decided to give you a bonus?
In my experience, simple cleft grafts work very well for plum.
I’ll research the cleft graft. I didn’t ask for the scion wood, but I did tell them that I was interested in the Broken Heart for next year, since it wasn’t available this year. The real treasure, though, is the cutting of the Jordan plum they gave me. Never heard of it? Me neither! It’s a rather rare Luther Burbank plum with (supposedly) snow white flesh. There’s very little about it on the web. I’d been asking about rare plums, particularly the forgotten Luther Burbank plums. There seems to be only about 15 in circulation, but he released over 100 of them. Anyway, I’m thrilled.
Yep, I’ve already googled the Jordan plum and found a description in Burbank’s book. Somehow the picture in the book shows a plum with a pinkish flesh, which does not match the “snow white flesh” description, but the color reproduction might be off.
That might be perfect, actually. There’s a local chapter event happening on March 11, but that’s not a good day for me. Sebastopol is a little far, but a friend of mine lives around the corner from Luther Burbank’s park.
Are you going to be at the grafting clinic tomorrow? I’m planning on going, but I’m wondering how much the rootstocks will be. My order from Raintree hasn’t come yet so I’ll need to buy a few. I’ve also never been to a CRFG event…