San Diego coastal plum variety?

Hi all,

My parents live on the coast in San Diego (Encinitas) and they wanted an additional plum tree to their yard. Right now they have a recently planted weeping santa rosa that seems to be doing great.

Do you guys have a preference on one of these three varieties? Methley, Beauty or Mariposa? I’m looking for the lowest chill plum variety available as they probably dont get over 100 chill hours total per year.

Thanks for the help everyone. Cant wait to hear your opinions.

Thanks!

I haven’t grown the varieties you’re asking about but based on this list santa rosa is about 300 chill hours so anything less than that should do okay.
https://www.evergreennursery.com/fruit-tree-chill-hours
I have green gage in san diego but am more inland than your folks and it’s amazing.
Tom Spellman’s low chill fruit pick for plum is Burgandy, he says if he could only grow one it would be that kind and I’m sure he’s tasted way more varieties than I have!

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Interesting! Is it this same green gage?

https://www.davewilson.com/product-information/product/green-gage-bavays-european-plum

How many chill hours do you get there?

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hey @Lids where are you located in San Diego? I am in Lake San Marcos (near the high school) and my in-laws are in Encinitas.

@ammoun I assume that I get sub 150 chill hours at my place (hopefully to ensure solid fruit sets) but my in-laws are so coastal that I assume they get <75CH per year.

Hopefully I can find good varieties in the lowest CH fruits available for their place that have good flavor. I’ve been reading quite a bit that a lot of the low chill varieities are sometimes lacking in the flavor department. Maybe I’m wrong on that?

I have purchased quite a few trees for them that probably wont do well long term that I may move to my place but I dont have much room. These may be up for grabs for all of you if they dont work out. Hopefully they can adapt to lower CH. We will see?

Best - Sean

I grafted a Beauty onto my Santa Rosa, but the last heavy rain storm we had knocked it off. I’ll need to use a rubber band on top of the grafting tape next year.

While I do not know much about other low-chill plums, the Snow Queen nectarine is supposed to be very good. My tree is loaded with fruit this year, so fingers crossed that they ripen up nicely and before the stupid peach curl defoliates the tree.

@JCT my Eva’s Pride has a little PLC but it seems like my early season dormant sprays took care of most of it. Interestingly enough…at a local nursery, all of their Eva’s Pride (30+ specimens) were absolutely riddled with PLC. Also, a coworker with a 4-1 peach tree from DWN has a graft of Eva’s Pride that has PLC. Something must be going on at DWN…seems like all of their Eva’s Pride offerings this year have it. My other peach varieties aren’t showing it…yet.

@ammoun interesting. I bought the green gage at a local nursery that sells dave wilson plants but I doubt i get 700 hours of chill. I think there are old threads about European vs Japanese green gage plums. The picture looks like mine and it’s really delicious

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@Sean I’m in Poway, we definitely had some frosty nights this year (my cherimoya got pretty sad but is coming back)

Even though we sprayed copper our Eva’s Pride got some PLC. It was such a wet winter (for us)

I love thd idea of gifting fruit trees when you run out of room! Truly a gift that keeps on giving, hopefully for all parties :slight_smile:

@Sean, I haven’t tried Methley and Beauty, but I really liked the flavor of Mariposa. It had a really nice sugar/acid balance. A lot of plums just taste sweet and bland to me, whereas I like them with some tartness.

Caveat, though, I grew it when I lived in inland CA, which gets quite a bit more chill than you get in SD, so the weather may have influenced the quality of the fruit.

Lids, I just bought a green gage from Walter Anderson , I am in la mesa, the tag said. 700 chill hours
Are you able to get fruit and also how many chill hours do you have ?
My friend told me
To return it because I don’t have enough chill hours.
I am trying to see if anyone is able to get it to fruit