Lavinia in its 2nd year is my earliest bloomer, Toka a few days after.
Hoping for a taste this summer…
I just added Lavina and Toka. I only did 3 grafts of each, and every one took. I had 100% takes with plums. Nice to work with these versus peaches.
How well does plum scion do on peaches? I’m out of spots on my 3 plum trees. I have a 4th, a weeping Santa Rosa, but I don’t wish to graft unto it.
They should do fine. Brady
Thanks I was also thinking of growing some out, plums that is as rootstock. Like what many do with peaches. I really want to knock my debt down, and I can’t if I keep buying trees!
Looks like good fruit set on mine this year… I have no idea what pollinates it…everything is in bloom about the same time. These are all on prunus americana…
Lavina
Hesse
Satsuma
9 Likes
Pollination question about the Lavina plum. I thought an American plum would serve as a pollinator since Lavina was a hybrid, but if the Lavina is P. cerasifera x P. salicina cross, but now I am guessing not. Correct?
I have no Japanese plum trees, but, fortunately, a few years ago after a Castleton died I allowed a shoot from a Myro to grow, so I will have one pollinator.
I have no idea what pollinates mine because i have so many other varities (maybe less after this winter) that bloom more or less at the same time. One thing you’ll have to watch is bloom times…that they somewhat overlap. If not you could always graft something in to help wil the pollination.
1 Like
My Lavina graft set two fruit, one looked perfect, the other cracked by rain. I bagged them together with a bread bag until they were almost ripe. Came home one day, something ripped open the bag and took the good one. I rescued the cracked one. The cracked part healed so no rot.
Ate it today. So sweet and perfumy. Brix was 20.
I think it was a groundhog that relocated from my neighbor’s yard to set up a new shop next to my orchard.
10 Likes
Time for you to set up the trap again.
3 Likes
This year I’ve gotten a good crop from my Lavina branches! They are wonderful plums. They’ve been ripening over the last week or so. The birds knock them out of the tree so I’ve been eating them maybe a little before full ripeness, but still sweet, tangy, and delicious. (My sister has to peel plums because she’s allergic to something in the skin, and her experience of these, peeled, is that they are very apricot-like.) It’s also probably my most beautiful plum, almost a neon pink-orange blush over yellow.
The graft is on a European plum (mirabelle) and it is EXTREMELY vigorous, relative to all the mirabelles and other Euro grafts. If I weren’t vigilant about pruning it back, it would now comprise most of the tree. This is the first year I’ve gotten many plums from it, though, and it’s the second or third year after grafting. This year has been wonderful for plums, because we had more chill than usual this winter, and a lot more rain, so almost all of my plum grafts produced, even the Euros that never had before. But nonetheless, bloom on Lavina was irregular, sparse and spread out over many weeks, and some branches didn’t leaf out until late spring. Also, I didn’t have to thin them much–so not a heavy fruit set. So it may not be completely appropriate for coastal California because we usually lack chill, and sadly, I may not get Lavinas every year.
Thanks, @scottfsmith for recommending it, and to whomever sent me the scions–can’t find my records of it!
7 Likes
Glad to hear it is working out (to some degree anyway) in your climate!
I didn’t get any myself this year as my tree got cankered and I am waiting for my new graft to get going. The canker was on the stock wood not on the Lavinia – a Ruby Queen plum.
Lavina has also been super vigorous for me, for a few years it would shoot straight up and I would cut it way back, repeating this for several years. Only when I started limb bending did I get it to calm down and start fruiting.
One of the best things about it is its unique flavor, in the apricot/cantaloupe/papaya kind of realm.
5 Likes
This looks like a good plum. Can I trade you for a stick next year?
1 Like
Sure but the wood will be on a small side. I have one branch left. The other got black knot earlier this spring. I had to remove the whole branch (long but not large).
I grafted both of them low so they have not been vigorous. Needto regraft it myself, too.
2 Likes
I got my first substantial crop of these this year, they are falling into early/mid ripening window just after Obilnaya and with Purple Heart. The fruit quality is great, mango tones when soft firm, getting caramel when dead ripe and fully colored red, reasonable firm and not too juicy, good size and wow very small semi freestone pit. Winner here in Maine! It seems to pair well with those other two varieties I mentioned. Much better than some of the old school hybrids in my collection like Underwood, LaCrescent, Waneta etc
5 Likes
Pictures, Jesse?
I left my Lavina on the tree until they turned red (reddish). But pictures of Lavina on the Internet are mostly yellow’ ish.
I grafted it to my Euro plum after I removed the J plum that had Lavina on it. I hope it will fruit next year.
2 Likes
I like mine when mostly red. I can say it’s reliability is good. Fruits every year. I rate flavor as very good not excellent. For a plum it is excellent but compared to pluots it’s only very good. At least according to my palate. It does have tropical tones but for that the coconut like flavor of Flavor Queen cannot be beat. Too bad Flavor Queen is an unreliable cropper. Very low yields here. I would cull the one scaffold I have but the flavor is so good. It has about a dozen fruits this year. Most it ever produced. It’s 9th leaf. Lavina Is a keeper for me. Very good flavor consistent year after year high yield. So it’s worth checking it out to see how it does for you.
2 Likes
Flavor Queen seems have biannual bearing habits. I got treefull of flavor Queen last year . But it only beared a dozen or so this year that squirrels harvested for me. This habitat also seem true to bubblegum.
1 Like
Jesse,
Your Lavina do not resemble at all the yellow plums that @Stan posted earlier. Your fruit greatly resembles a wild plum that I harvest each year, also a very nice plum, but there does not seem to be an authoritative information source for the real Lavina? Please advise as I have been thinking about adding it to my collection.
Dennis
Kent, wa
