I have just two plums, Santa Rosa, & Stanley.Prune Plums
I’d like to add 2-3 more trees & am looking for new varieties or recommendations to get more of what I have.
In the NE, 5B
Mt Royal
Santa Rosa doesn’t seem especially hardy to me. If it survives there, many will.
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Thank you for the Mt. Royal recommendation, any others?
President, empress, and Bluebyrd are some well liked European plums
Toka, Shiro, Lavina, and Oblinaja are some well liked Japanese/hybrids
Hello,
Are those all cold hardy to 5 or 4?
Yes, and all are at least moderately disease resistant. Opal is another good European plum.
I’m not lazy, but do you have sources where you get these different varieties?
Cummins nursery has a lot of these options
Fedco sells a lot of cold hardy plums.
Make sure whatever varieties you choose, they cross pollinate with each other. Most plums need to be cross pollinated. The self-fertile ones will produce better with cross pollination partners.
Make sure the varieties you choose do not ripen too late for your zone. Also, please put your zone and location in your profile. It is helpful into for us to know.
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Not sure of cold hardy… some of these are maybes… worth your time to read threads on these in this forum.
Asian - Laroda, Satsuma, Purple Heart, Emerald Beaut, Lavina, Weeping Santa Rosa,
Euro- French Improved, Bavays Green Gage, Empress, Valor, Castleton, Bluebyrd.
However saying all that… if you can pull off pluots just go that way… and maybe a good prune plum and a green gage.
Tony in Z5 seems seems to do well with pluots… not sure if your Z5 is the same as his Z5 etc.
I am in Z6 and it seems like Satsuma may be somewhat borderline, at least as far as test winters are concerned. However, just as in colleges these days, those tests are getting easier (extreme cold events less extreme). Nevertheless, it takes many years to evaluate the cold hardiness of any plant and there are many variables because trees do not have a stable level of hardiness. A lot depends on whether a drop in temperature is sudden. If relatively mild weather precedes it you will likely get different and worse results. Early or late winter lows tend to be more lethal than mid-winter ones. I suspect early spring drops kill a lot of trees as well.
Back when we had “real” winters, peaches used to routinely fruit after winters where temps dropped to -15F. Now I’ve seen flower buds killed at -8F. Generally winter lows are significantly higher than they used to be.
It used to be too cold here for Norway rats. Now, for the first time, I’m trapping them on my property. They freeze in the traps when there is a frost. Maybe cockroaches are next.
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