hey folks. my wife rarely makes suggestions on what i grow so i need some help here. she likes the dark purple yellow flesh plums you usually get at the store and asked if i could put a tree in for her. as plums arent my thing what would be a good variety that can take our short cool wet weather, z3b/4a on clay soil? we have alot of black knot on the local chokecherries so it would have to be fairly resistant to that at least. a smaller tree would be better as i dont have alot of room left to play with. i will have it on a spray schedule with my sour cherries for good measure.
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I would think that the Japanese/American hybrids would be your best bet since they tend to be pretty cold hardy while also having good resisitance to black knot. I bought a Toka and Superior a few years ago specifically because of their resistance to black knot and they are also known to be pretty tasty too. Check out this article from the University of Maine:
https://extension.umaine.edu/publications/2034e/
There are some nice charts and really useful info on the hardiness and disease resistance of various cultivars.
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Does she like a good prune plum? Mine do well here in western Montana, so they should be hardy enough for you, and the local black knot hasn’t got to them yet. I haven’t had to spray anything on them, and I think that’s the rule for a lot of feral prune plums around here. My wife and I love them just short of fully ripe, and they make superb jam and coffee cakes.
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didnt even know the U of ME had a write up on plums. thanks!
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not sure what cultivars make a prune plum? ive never seen her eat a prune but ill ask her.
I love finding good articles like that. That one is a treasure trove of info! Helped me a lot in choosing which plums to get.
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Mind they’re eaten fresh for the purposes of this discussion. I’m sure there are many cultivars but a prune plum is oval, perhaps somewhat small compared to lots of other plums, and is sweet enough to be dried mold-free without removing the pit. Here’s my prune on nanking cherry rootstock (took about 10 years from grafting to decent bearing!):
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Years ago while living in Minnesota I found that Pipestone, Waneta, Underwood, Toka , Superior ect were all popular Jap/american hybrids. They seemed to do fine in central Minnesota. I was very partial to Underwood as far as flavor went. Pipestone was big but somewhat mellow in flavor. Alderman was the last one brought out by U of MN and I did not care for the flavor at all. Only tried them once however so maybe I got some that were picked too early or too late but I was not impressed with the batch I bought at a roadside stand.
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Just another thought. Try Fedco in Maine for cold hardy plums. They used to have a great listing. I believe another source in New Hampshire also had a great list of cold hardy jap/american plums for sale too bare-root. Can’t think of their name at the moment.
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Superior! Fruity, Juicy, Delicious and blooms a bit before peaches and is nice and cold hardy. Its hard to describe how good of flavour and is purple when ripe and nice and yellow with a hint of orange on the inside.
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Remember flavor is subjective. For example I think Superior is ok but rather average in flavor. Not one of my favorites. Yet others love it.
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HI Steve. Im in the Lake George area of upstate NY. We used to be zone 4 but now 5 . It gets very cold in this area. I have about a dozen plum trees and have been getting devastated by Black knot . Methley, Bruce, Burbank, Santa Rosa, Black Ice, Hanska, Shiro, and especially Stanley Prune have been overwhelmed and all but two of those are still standing. So far, there is nothing on my Alderman( whiich has large red plumbs in August that taste great) and no sign of any on my Superior that is literally 10 feet from the infested Prune tree. I also have a Waneta that is still young but no sign of Black Knot. I have been trying to get new trees the past few weeks and finding that there arent a lot available mail order. The President is supposed to be a good one and I put that in last May. BlueByrd is another. And Kenmore(NY 9) is also supposed to be a good one, but I cant find one for sale. Order soon if your looking for spring delivery.
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Wanted to update this post. My President is planted almost under a native wild cherry that has Black knot. It had gotten several knots the first year in and I pruned them out. While it did get it, this year it only had one knot. Im starting to think it needed to get established before it could fight it. I think it will survive. Still not a single knot on Superior, Alderman, Waneta, Early Italian, Bluebyrd, BubbleGum(Toka), and Au Rosa. I think I said Au Rubrum in an earlier post. I have an Oblinaja that is 4 yrs old and still Blackknot free as well. I planted 3 NY9 and they were covered within the first year and none of them survived the Blackknot, which seemed ironic since I’m in NY where they were developed. I’m starting to wonder if there are different races of Blackknot that might account for some surviving and others not. I have planted a Lavina Plum this year so should know something next fall.
I’ve started focusing on Peaches including Blushing Star, Contender, Reliance, Hale Haven, Red Haven, and Crimson Rocket . Also Pears including Summer Crisp, Bell, Gem, and now this year Juicy Jewel(Summer Crisp x Shinseiki cross). I have an Orient that does well and a Moonglow that always seems to get full of Wasps before I can pick them before they ripen. I have a 10 yr old Bartlett that never sets fruit for some reason. This is why I’m trying to plant as many varieties as I can that can ripen on the tree without rotting in the center first as Moonglow does.
Ive also planted some Apples including Williams Pride, Buckeye Gala, HoneyCrisp, and Lodi.
I was also curious if Apricots might do better with Blackknot resistance so last year I planted half a dozen varieties at parents property but the soil there is very rocky/gravel 6 inches down and acidic but if something does great there, it will be a good experiment.
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my siberian peaches, romance cherries and black ice plum so far havent got black knot despite my property being surrounded in chokecherry thats full of it. im pretty diligent about spraying with fungicide though. we had a fairly dry summer so im sure that has helped. have got blossom end blight several times and brown rot in the cherries forcing me to prune out the worst affected branches and spraying the rest. it saved my trees several times doing that. they are all open center now.
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You should look into Superior , Alderman, Waneta, and Toka Plums. They look to be hardy to zone 3 and one of them zone 4. Most plums can be planted as a thicket if space is tight. I had never heard of the Siberian Peach before. I think Nemaguard Peach is hardy in zone 4 and has much larger fruit if you have room. Siberian and Nemaguard are both Prunus persica types. I did see an improved Siberian Peach available but was $150.00 and it didnt say what the improvement was.
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never heard of nemaguard. siberian peaches are usually used as a hardy rootstock but the fruit is decent but small and supposed to be z4 hardy. i tried contender and reliance and both died. ill see if i can source nemaguard.
Any idea what the rootstock was on your peach trees? It might be a question of which couldnt take the cold, the tree or the rootstock. I also think I had a black Ice Plum about 10 years ago, but I cant remember how I lost it, if it was Blackknot or something else. I know where it was and I have a Toka(Bubble Gum) there now.
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no i dont. they came from fedco so they should have had cold hardy rootstocks.