That is unfortunate and quite frustrating that we British Columbians can’t experience the same fun compared to our neighbors just 2 hour drive away. In that case I will just grow some plums. What variety do you recommend to a newbie (to growing stone fruit) like me? I am thinking of getting 2 or 3 varieties
Hi, Jonny. Welcome to the forum. I’m another pluot grower who bought a Dapple Dandy from Whiffletree before they stopped shipping here. I think that your best bet is to buy a plum tree that is pollen-compatible with pluots and graft one or more pluots on it after it is established. I’m willing to provide free Dapple Dandy scions to anyone who is willing to drive to Burnaby to pick them up.
The only problem with this is that the compatible plums (oriental) that I’m familiar with are not very good for eating or are not productive. I know that Santa Rosa is a good pollinator for pluots, but I’ve only had two good crops in over 30 years of growing it. Beauty and Shiro bloom at the right time, but their fruits turn to bags of juice if you don’t pick them in time. Some people actually like them, but I don’t. They might pollenate a pluot, but I’m not sure. Someone else on this forum might have better information.
The only plum that I would recommend for eating fresh is some variety of Italian Prune, which is also good for freezing and incorporating into desserts. It’s a European plum that blooms too late to pollenate a pluot. I’m sure that there are plenty of other good plums to grow; I just haven’t sampled many.
Hi there Vito. 
These are probably the best adapted plums for our west coast climate. Super productive healthy trees, with plums good for eating out of hand, cooking, preserves, juicing, or dehydrating into prunes. Unfortunately for me, we had such a glut of them on the farm growing up that I just got tired of eating them. However, they are likely the best all round plum for our climate (just not for me).
Of the other European plum trees that have matured enough to have harvested small crops from last year, these are my thoughts.
Opal:
Good medium size fresh eating plum that ripens much earlier than most other varieties of European plums. I really like it because it spreads the harvest out so that everything isn’t ripening at the same time.
Green Gage:
Another Euro plum that ripens earlier than most other varieties of European plums. Super sweet mini sugar balls (almost too sweet for me), also too small for processing IMO. Perfect snack size for popping a few in the mouth while walking about the orchard.
Yellow Egg Plum:
Like Italian in shape, only with bright yellow flesh and skin. Good for fresh eating. Probably the largest size fruit of any of the Euro plums I have grown.
European plums bloom later than Japanese plums, and are therefore less susceptible to crop killing late freezes. The added bonus with most European plums is that they are self pollinating. For these reasons European plums tend to be far more reliable croppers than most strains of Japanese plums.
Japanese plums (including interspecifics, hybrids etc).
I prefer the plums with Asian heritage because they are the earliest ripening plums of the summer that taste great.
Shiro:
Most reliable cropper of all the Japanese plums. Medium size with with bright yellow flesh and skin. Good eating, but quickly turns into a juice bag once fully ripe. Worth growing IMO.
Beauty:
One of the earliest ripening Japanese plums. Taste is unimpressive IMO, but if nothing else is ripe it fills the early niche.
Would not recommend Methley because of black knot issues.
Would not recommend Red Heart because of it’s small size and unimpressive taste..
Most of my Japanese descended varieties have only had minimal (or no) crops yet because of the tree’s immaturity. From my limited sampling these were my favorites:
Flavor Supreme:
Large size fruit, top tier flavor.
Flavor King:
Large size fruit, top tier flavor.
Elephant Heart:
Large size fruit, top tier flavor. Do not graft as a multi-fruit tree as it is far to vigorous and will take over.
Purple Heart:
Large size fruit, excellent flavor.
Howard Miracle:
Medium size fruit, excellent flavor.
Nadia:
Medium size fruit, good crops, excellent flavor.
Black Ice:
Large size fruit, very good flavor.
Black Amber:
Large size fruit, very good flavor.
Northern Sunset:
Old Luther Burbank variety of plumcot, good flavor.
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I enjoy reading your report and ratings.
I’ve grown many of those varieties. For me Beauty is at least as reliable a cropper as Shiro. The other sure bet is AU Producer for me. I think I only had one year in the last 10 in which AU and Shiro didn’t produce well. My Beauty is younger but hasn’t missed since producing, and was very reliable at my old place.
Beauty used to be at the bottom of my list for fresh eating, but high for jam. I finally had one that tasted good which inspired me to thin more last year, and for the first time they were pretty good. I’m committed to ruthlessly thinning this year, which will be a chore since the stone fruit seem to have a great set.
Another good producer of excellent fruit is Splash. And perhaps my best stone fruit producer of high quality fruit to share is Nadia, which I would rate as good flavor. But it has the best combination of yield, health, picking window, keeping and blemish free fruit without spray of my stone fruit so far.
I grafted Flavor Supreme to Shiro over 10 years ago and have yet to taste a ripe fruit.
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Thank you @vitog for your generous offer. I will do more research and decide later on in the year. I actually grew up in Burnaby so you are in my familiar territory. I live in Surrey now as I had just gotten married and bought a new home.
Thank you @tbg9b for sharing your knowledge and experience with me. From this list I guess if I do go with European I will get Italian, Opal, and Green Gage. It really is too bad that we cannot get pluots easily here, because I remember eating a Dinosaur Egg pluot (from my search it is a Dapple Dandy) from Costco and I absolutely loved it.
HI @Jujubejohnny.
I also lived in Burnaby when I was much younger, as it was actually the affordable suburban community close to Vancouver way back when.
If you want to go the European plum route I’ll mention some other varieties that are sold locally.
Don’t buy list:
Peach plum:
Very small fruit and very unproductive. No peach lineage whatsoever, mostly a marketing gimmick I figure. I think I’ll graft over this 5 - 6 year old dud in the near future.
Other Euros sold locally that I have growing:
Brooks, very similar to Italian, sold locally in BC. Likely a little better flavor for fresh eating than Italian.
Seneca similar to traits to Brooks, sold locally. Nice healthy prune plum type trees with good size plums.
Mirabelle is a small sweet European plum that is held in high regard. It is sold by Tree eater nursery on Denman Island (they do mail order so a ferry trip is not required). Tree Eater also sells scion wood if you order in January. This tree seems to be a little more prone to getting black knot than the other varieties I listed which seem fairly trouble free so far.
I’m probably forgetting some Euro varieties sold locally but if I recall any more I’ll give you a shout back.
I can share scion wood at times, but I am not collecting much scion wood in the winter anymore. Almost all of my stone fruit trees are Espallier/Fan shaped tress that I keep 6 - 8 feet tall max. Once the trees have been shaped in their formative years, I now do almost no winter pruning to avoid disease issues. So my scion wood supply is very limited as my trees are mostly all dwarf with a limited supply.
That means almost all of my pruning of my stone fruit trees now takes place in the summer. This is the best time to prune plum trees to keep the trees dwarfed, but also to prevent the spread of contagions prevalent in the winter.
This means I generally now have extra bud wood for summer bud grafting, but very little winter collected scion wood for spring grafting.
The problem with live bud sticks is they need to be collected and used very quickly. Unlike dormant scion wood that can be sent in the mail in the winter, bud wood needs to be transported refrigerated in sealed bags to prevent desication and used within a day (or two max).
Good luck with your mini orchard.
welcome to the club. if you are in the Burnaby area, Garden Works carry a bunch of Plum and Prunes that are adapted to our weather. unfortunately you wont find any of the interspecific pluots from them. however if you dont mind paying a few bucks extra you can try nutcrakenursery. they are on the east coast. they will carry pluots, plumcots and some other plums like elephant heart etc. I just check the site, all Pluots are sold except for flavor queen ( I dont recommend buying it, it doesnt fruit for me in Richmond). The only hybrid that you can get locally (garden works lougheed) is Nadia(australia/jap hybrid), I saw 2 trees left last monday. I was very tempting to buy a satsuma plum but went for yellow egg prune instead.
I am in the lower mainland every square inches of the property counts, dont have the luxury of having a real orchard like the others here in the forum. I have several Frankenstein prunus tree to play around with scions. This forum is awesome, I have learnt a lot from the past few growing seasons. Members are very nice and knowledgeable.
Hi tbg9b,
thanks for the review and reports. really appreciated.
flavour king = very good plum with a tropical note
dapple dandy = excellent flavour balance, productive
splash = okay taste, fruit drops, fruit cracks and has plum pocket but extremely productive
flavour queen: dont do it, never produced fruit for me
emerald drop: grafted 3 years ago. not a single fruit yet.
Nadia: first year of production from a graft, very excited to try the fruit this year.
@tbg9b is the black amber, black ice productive? as I just acquired black gold ( I heard its very good)
Not yet, but they’ve only just come into production in the last year. Black Ice blooms like no other plum tree I’ve seen before. Almost every square inch of the tree is like a solid wall of white blossoms. My tree is only 6 foot tall and I swear it there must have been a thousand blooms on the thing. Sadly, not much in the way of fruit yet. Both have been pretty shy barers so far, but I’m hoping next year will be the year they break out for me.
I was kind of surprised that flavor queen seemed to have a small crop on it for the first time (2 years in ground).
The biggest surprise for me though was that a whimpy flavor grenade tree that I only planted in the fall that has a small crop on it. They may all drop though, but still that’s a good sign for the future I hope. This tree looked so sad and whimpy that I didn’t even dare head it or take any scion wood off it for grafting. Luckily it survived transport and transplanting and now seems to be doing well. Unfortunately, it going to take me awhile to shape this tree properly because it’s so sparse on limbs.
Luisa has a small crop on it for the first time (2 years in ground).
Really poor pollination this spring, but it looks like a few on my Euro plums are starting to produce for the fist time after 2 years in ground as well.
Hopefully you will have enough growth to hookup some scions of your black amber and ice next winter. My friend ordered flavour Granade and ozark plum from nutcrackenursery, very excited to collect the scions from it. They normally ship in May and tree will still be dormant
Actually, I looked at my black ice tree again today. It bloomed quite late and had more blossoms than you could count, with tons of dead petals still covering the tree. I thought there weren’t many fruitlets on it when I looked last, but now that the massive covering of petals are blowing away it looks like it may have a small but respectable crop this year.
One positive, and a negative discovery today. I thought I might get to taste some flavor grenade this summer, but now I’m not so sure. Many of the flavor grenade pluots on the tree had chunks taken out of them. It looked like bird pecks on the fruit, but why would birds bother pecking green fruit? No other fruit on my trees had this happen, very strange and disappointing to see.
Send me a message in mid December and I’ll see what scion wood I can put aside for you.
Which European varieties do you grow? Which one is your favorite? I want to ideally get both an early and late ripening variety. This way I can extend the season a bit longer. I got an Italian Prune variety from Costco last week. I know it is everywhere here in the Lower Mainland but I think it must be for good reason just like the Desert King is for figs here.
Thank you for sharing your experience. I think I will wait until this winter to order some pluots from Nut Cracker Nursery next year. Yes every inch of land is indeed valuable here in the Lower Mainland. I am lucky that this house is sitting on a decent sized lot. Right now we have just a big plot of lawn with a giant Desert King fig tree. I can’t eat the lawn so I am looking to plant some fruit trees around the property instead! I will get those pluot varieties that you had recommended!
I’d recommend heavily thinning your Splash. Every year but one they’ve been excellent with a sweet, rich, and unique flavor that is one of my best. It does get bugs more than some, and some splits, but I carve around them or favor the less blemished ones and they are delicious.
Even in good years Emerald Drop has also set very sparsely for me. I may have a few Flavor Queen this year for once. I think I got 1 or 2 before but probably didn’t get to try them properly ripe.
Tbg9b,
Aren’t you in the island? How can your FG fruitlets be as big as bird peck-able size ? My splash are small as a dime. Are you sure is bird damage ? I have seen some green caterpillars eating my dapple dandy fruitlets. and thanks for the scions offer. I will set it on my calendar this time. lol
Murky, is your splash prolific every year? I have mine for the third year, it looks like I will be have a few dozens. Hopefully it doesn’t crack on me like last year. I see a couple of promising Nadia fruitlets; second year scion. I heard that Nadia doesn’t have the hangability like the pluots, correct me if I am wrong. I am excited to try it. Guys from this forum praise it so much haha
Hi Johnny,
If you think that is too late to be ordering from the east; you are not. Because no matter how evenly you order, you will get your trees around late May/june. And the tree will still be in dormancy. I don’t know why but that’s how it is lol. Good luck
The Gulf Islands actually, but more or less similar to Saanich and Victoria for weather.
You’re probably right, it just looked like bird pecks, but it probably wasn’t. Other than my cherries (which I have to net), the birds pretty much leave my fruit alone.
The most annoying thing they manage to do is to break off a grafted branch if I didn’t get around to taping a section of bamboo onto it to prevent them from perching there.
I’m not sure if I recall all of them, because I have a fair number of Euro varieties.
I don’t think you’ll get a fair assessment from me on the Euro plums taste, because I grew up eating prune plums as a staple and I got rather tired of them. I’m sure most people would rate any fresh grown prune plums as awesome. Unfortunately, most people only have the crap they sell in grocery stores for comparison.
Of the Euros, I prefer plums other than the prune types. I am growing a hand full of different prune types, because other people like them.
I have two varieties of yellow egg plum. One of them I like very much, the other is a 100 year old heritage yellow egg plum that I also got tired of eating as a kid (it is good though). Most of my Euros either fruited for the first time last year, or are having their first crop this year. Of the ones I tasted last year I think I preferred the Opal the best, hut Pearl was pretty good too. The smaller plums like green gage and mirrabelle were almost too sweet for me. I prefer a more balanced flavor rather than just sugary.
I’m also growing a very small prune plum tree that I successfully cloned from another 100 year old plum tree just before it gave up the ghost.
I tasted Books last year but it was a little over ripe, (and as I’ve said prune plums generally aren’t my favorite).
I’m also growing Imperial Epineuse plum, but it still hasn’t fruited, same with Seneca, and Late Italian (still waiting).
I have mentioned some of the other Euros I grow a few posts back.
I have far more Asian plums, plumcot, pluot, and hybrid/interspecifics because I prefer their flavor profile to the Euros. Perhaps when Imperial Epineuse starts producing it will change my mind about Euros, because it’s supposed to be one of the most highly regarded of the purple prune type plums. Time will tell, maybe the trees that have yet to produce will change my opinion of Euro plums.
Yes, Splash sets well every year unless all of the stone fruit miss.
A given Nadia fruit goes through a range of palatability that lasts a couple of weeks I think unless its super hot weather.
Some like it when its crisp and tart before its fully ripe. They also don’t ripen all at once, so I think we’re eating them for a few weeks in the summer. It hangs much better than Shiro and Beauty but nothing like Flavor Grenade.
I was quite shocked at how long Nadia’s picking window was last year. From the first fruit I tried that was ripe, to the last Nadia I picked was easily over a month. Just fantastic for a home grower, (not so much for commercial operation).
I agree with your assessment of Nadia being the best all around plum tree that you grow
I tasted better plums/pluots last summer, but most of the varieties that had superior fruit had tiny crops in comparison. Sure, Nadia isn’t as large as some of my other varieties, but it makes up for that with the number of plums it produces. It’s fruit is still a very adequate size, just not huge like elephant heart or some of the better pluots.
The average Nadia plum I would rate very good in flavor, but a small minority of the fruit were of exceptional flavor. I don’t know why, but some of the Nadia ranked right up there with the best of the best. However, that was not the average Nadia, that I would rate as good to very good.
That along with the fact that Nadia is a very robust tree that grows really well with no disease or pest issues that I’ve encountered so far (without spraying) make it a great choice for a backyard gardener.
Does it really taste like a cherry as the hype advertised when it first came out, not really but who cares It’s still a really good eating plum.
I would also like to add about Nadia being in a multi grafted tree; I would not recomend that as its super vigorous. only one year and is almost taken over one quarter of my tree.