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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I wanted a hybrid plum closer to the Underwood, so I figured I’d plant an American plum and graft another hybrid plum onto it. Toward the end of May, I removed a small American plum from our thicket by the creek and replanted it in a good location in the orchard. Its leaves wilted soon after, and after a few weeks they turned brown. Then they dropped off. I didn’t get around to removing it, and that was a good thing. New leaves have started to grow.
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I find wild plums fascinating and have planted quite a few in my yard. After reading about them and their disappearance. I have bought them from different nurseries all over hoping to have different genetics. All mine are planted on overgrown/forest edges of my yard so any suckers in the grass are no worry. I have also located 2 different patches in the wild that I collected seeds from last year that I have started in pots, those are American plums based on where I am in MD.
The saplings I bought over the last few years are: American, Beach, Chickasaw (wild ones and a cultivar), Mexican, and Flatwoods plums. I bought Hortulana seeds online.
If anyone has any info on where I can buy seeds from other species please share.
Cheers
