Planting an American plum as a consolation price

This past spring I got a hold of a cherry and plum rootstocks but neither graft took. Heck the cherry rootstock itself failed to make it. The one thing that is growing with gusto is the American plum rootstock itself, and that’s after rubbing it off twice. I figure it it is trying to hard to make it I shouldn’t get in the way.

Anybody growing wild plums? I imagine that there is a lot of variety but in general, how do you like the fruit? I have sand cherries and an anemic Kuban that last year after dying to within an inch of the graft it is still barely putting any growth, so I’m not even counting on it for pollination.

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I’ve been hitting wild plums with Crossbow…harder to get rid of them than poison ivy.

Their roots travel and come up and make thickets…killing the top does not kill underground.

The fruit is very very very sparse…so a waste of space and a thorny mess.

I have one that I grafted Adara on, and then plan to graft peaches to the Adara. I have another prunus Americana that I plan to graft european plums on.

Prunus americana do really well around here except the late deep freezes kill the blooms often enough. Flesh tastes great but the skin is bitter (to me) so I spit out the skin. We keep them contained by mowing. We have some in a row as a screen to block possible spray drift from an adjacent field. If they get hit by spray, oh well… tough plants.

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