Probably will still have to wait to taste fruit from the tree, but seven blossoms on the Green Gage surprised me.
YesâŚOPâŚbutâŚ
Mine took about 10 years to produceâŚthen it got black knot and had to be cut down. Along with all the rest of my plums.
Hi Vincent! Has your Golden Transparent produced fruit yet? Are you happy with it?
Itâs had a lot of fruitlets every year then dropped all. After 6 years continue happened like that all the time therefore I removed it. No more Golden Transparent plum. Next maybe Imperial Epineuse from Raintree over 7 years with no single fruit.
Yikes! That must have been disappointing
I was considering bot GT & IE but I might just get a Seneca & one of the Mirabelles.
Thank you!
Believe me or not I removed 2 of my Seneca as well. Very little of fruits, big fruit but tasting very bland. Not sweet as much as described . I would recommend a regular Greengage or Italian plum better choice for Seattle areas.
Wow! Thank you!
I would expect that any variety that ripens when Seattle tends to have its sunniest weather would perform best there as well as varieties that are small fruited and known for high brix. A site with full sun exposure would likely also be helpful. .
Yes, most of people here are very successful with Italian prune plum and some of us have green gage, they do good here . As you recommended Castleton plum variety a while ago. I couldnât find any performance report information for western Washington here @alan .
I just posted my question on a different threadâŚhow do we know what Green Gage plum we bought? We bought two trees here in zone 7A, Annapolis Md, from Hollybrook Orchards on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.
We did trial Green Gauge at Mt Vernon REU. Im pretty sure it was a Reine Claudes although which exact cultivar I cant remember. We also trialed others like Cambridge which honestly did much better at that location. The Green Gauge was rated poorly due to low fruiting mostly.
At my farm, although I am sold almost entirely now on Japanese plums, I did used to grow Stanley, Valor and Rosy Gauge. These were all way too huge/vigorous of trees for my likes so they all eventually left. They all fruited well though. At this time my only Euro type plums are Imperial Epinouse and Early Laxton. I can keep the size on these managed and they fruit within my Japanese Plum market season.
My husband is dangerous with a blow torch or a caulk gun. When I see him walk across the yard with either in his hand . . . âmy blood runs coldâ. (what a saying!)
Once he starts - I can see him scanning the property for other things to âfixâ.
How . . . ever - I think I learned about the blow torch idea right here on the forum, years ago, when my Toka plum was full of gooey âGummosisâ. So I decided to give it a go with the blow torch. And I knew just who to ask to do it!
It looked horrid for awhile, after he was done. . . but it did the trick! I wish I could recall just how deep he went with the flame - and for how long. I think we almost burned all the bark off (not off, but good and blackened).
Rosy Gage is a good plum, but it not a Gage plum by any stretch of the imagination. IT is not even an offspring of a Gage plum. Most of the Gage plums sold at nurseries are Old Green Gage, aka Reine Claude Vert. If they do not list it as a different Gage plum, it is most likely the one you are getting.
I agree, most are the original. But I have heard of cases where it was not even a gage, or even a Euro plum.
My original Green Gage tree is fading and my new one next to it wonât fruit for a few more years⌠so I will have a couple years of lower crops. Fortunately I have two trees of Bavays both fruiting now
BTW Rosy Gage got the worst knot I ever saw, the entire tree was covered. It was the only tree I ever removed due to black knot.
Yeah, I bought a couple of Green Gage that turned out to be Asian plums. Some companies donât care about repeat business.
Mislabelled trees can be a real problem. They offer to refund you, but it does nothing to compensate you for a lost growing season. They also always refund you the cost at last yearâs price, and never refund shipping. That is if you are lucky enough to learn the mistake after a year. When you find out that you spent 3 years growing a tree that will never make fruit in your climate, it kinda burns.
I planted Mt Royal and Rosy Gage in 2018.
My Rosy got black knot 2 springs in a row⌠then died of some kind of wilt the next spring while leafing out.
Yesterday I added 2 grafts of Green Gage to my Mt Royal.
This is the first year that my Mount Royal looks like it will bear fruit. Big bloom this spring⌠lots of little plums on now.
TNHunter
I donât have Rosy Gage, but in my yard Bavay is the most susceptible plum to BK, out of 20+ plums. I am actually considering removing it in a few years (after I try several crops from it), as I am tired from carving out all the BK lesions.
Dear TN its Gage
Within the US, the three main types of green gage trees sold are Old Green gage, Bavayâs green gage and Cambridge gage. There are other types of gages (Ouillens, Golden Transparent, Count Althans), but here we are talking about a specific type known as the European Green gage, and trying to figure out if anyone can distinguish amongst 3. In conclusion to this post, I realize I can NOT tell the difference between the 3.
I would be delighted to hear if anyone has grown all three strains/varieties, and in their specific orchard, can they tell the difference in how the trees produce, and more importantly, how they tasteâŚcompared to the 2 others?
In their Xanadu Orchard, The Fruit Detective David Karp and Andy Mariani, told me these 3 green gages are visually and flavor wise, very hard to tell apart. All 3 are harvested during the same time, and more importantly, Andy sells them mixed together. He labels the trees, and thus knows which type of green gage he is harvesting. But he does not label them distinctly, when selling them⌠if he and his customers canât tell the difference, why market them as different?
Andy told me Cambridge gage trees tends to be the better producing amongst the 3, while David mentioned the Bavay strain, sometimes has a subtle⌠better overall flavor.
The biggest 1st hurdle is to make sure you have the European green gage, as there are nurseries in America that sell green gauge plums that are Asian plums.
Within England, there are sport varieties of Green gage & Cambridge gage (like Lindsey gage), that grow better & produce a better tasting version in certain regions of England.
I have never read of someone, in a specific part of England, who has grown every strain or sport of green gage, and been able to describe, in detail, in a taste test comparison, of how to distinguish the flavor amongst the big 3 green gages (and the numerous regional sports)âŚ
So keep in mind if youâre looking for what type of green gage do you have, take into account that the green gage came from Persia, moved to Armenia, Greece, Italy, into France as the Reine ClaudeâŚall the while adapting its flavor profile and production capability, based on local weather & soil conditions. It adapted to Belgium in mutating into the Bavay strain of green gage. Then it was brought over to England where it first adapted into what is sold as Old Green gage. Then in parts of England, especially in the Cambridge area, it muted into a sport variety which produced more reliable harvests. Even within England, there are nurseries that sell a strain called Old Green gage, and then offer another strain referred to as Reine Claude Doree (just check out the Keepers site that I linked above).
There are subtle strain mutations, which produce better harvests and have a tastier flavor profile than Reine Claude Doree or Old Green gage.
It then adapted to the weather, depending on what part of England, Thus you have the Cambridge cage, which is considered an improved version of the green gage (production wise and flavor wise)⌠By improved, meaning within England, this sport or mutated strain produced a healthier tree with a more productive annual harvest. Within regions of England, there are strains of Cambridge gage that have mutated to producing a better tasting, and or more productive tree In that local area. However, in some parts of England, the old green gage Is sold/grown because the trees grow better and produce better tasting green gages than the Cambridge gauge. You would think if the Cambridge gage did better throughout all of EnglandâŚespecially as to an improvement in taste, the âoldâ green gage wouldâve just been phased out.
But to answer the original question, of which green gage tree do they have? If the original label is lost, but itâs a European (not Asian) green gage, based on what Andy and David taught me, it is very difficult to tell the difference amongst the three main types of European green gages available in the US.
I have not seen the Cambridge gage trees sold in online nurseries in France, Germany, italy, or Belgium. You will only find each countries translation of the name Reine Claude (Doree strain) Perhaps non-English hobbyists did try growing the Cambridge strain in their countries, but they didnât see an improved tree, like the English did, with the Cambridge gage. Or as David and Andy realized, there really was not much of a difference, in the flavor of these 3 varieties, to warrant growing only 1 of them & phasing out the other 2.
From a farmerâs/hobbyists harvest standpoint, of a more reliable producing tree, Andy told me he would prefer to plant the Cambridge gage, as in his region in Northern California, it produces more reliable, & larger harvests, per tree. The Green gage is notorious for being a challenging tree to produce sizeable annual harvests, so you can see why the English were thrilled, with the Cambridge gage, due to it producing better/larger annual harvests, throughout many regions in England, compared to the Old Green gage.
I have counted about 12 different strains of Reine Claude Doree and Old Green gage within England, but we only have 3 of them in the US.
Thereâs also Imperial Gage / Dennistonâs Superb, which is supposedly the hardiest and possibly largest of the green-colored gages (with inferior skin). It was developed in New York, but now seems to only be available in Europe. Wondering if anyone in the US still has this one?