I have an Italian Prune plum that is just now starting to show some green in the buds. Meanwhile, my Gold and Santa Rosa are already fully bloomed. I’ve only had them three years but, as I recall, they previously broke dormancy closer together. Can anyone share some insight as to what is going on here?
They are all in a row 10ft apart in full sun and I am not sure what rootstock but I bought the Italian Prune at Lowes, the Gold at Home Depot, and the Santa Rosa at a local nursery.
Chill hours vary between them, I guess.
santa rosa has about 300.
maybe this year you didn’t get enough cold for the Italian prune.
Yes Euro plums bloom later than Japanese. Two different species. Dour mentions chill hours, but I have no clue where you are so I can’t say if that is a factor or not? Most likely just the difference between Japanese and Euro. Although I never heard of Gold, so do not know what it is? Santa Rosa is a very well known Luther Burbank Japanese plum.
I’m not sure where Lowe’s information came from,but the Italian Prune is self-fertile.Those listed on the card,look to be Asian varieties anyway.
Yeah, that was really bad of Lowes for printing that up like that! Asians don’t pollinate Euros and vice versa.
My Euro plums were later than usual this year, too. I like it because they almost definitely miss the deep freezes here.
Wow Lowes saying Japanese will pollenate Euro. Is almost as bad as saying apples will pollinate oranges. Anything to sell more trees I guess?
We have known they will not cross for about 250 years now. No known hybrids although some claim Harvard Miracle is but that would be a miracle! It’s not!
They have it labeled as Prunus salicina on the front so I think that is the single point of failure for their consumer packaging team.
When I first started I would not have known that.
And most people do not. Makes it seem like a marketing strategy. As all should fruit with none the wiser.
Look on the bright side, since it is late we know it is indeed a Euro plum. The biggest problem with those big box trees is mislabeling the variety. Of course that still could be wrong, but at least it is the right species!
My transplanted wild plum has swelling buds, but hasn’t bloomed yet. My pluots bloomed a couple weeks ago, and the freezes got those. I think the wild plum is okay, just late. Some trees just wake up at different times.
