The tree is semi dwarf. Fruit size depends on varieties. Mirabelles fruit are small. French Improved and Mt Royal fruit are on a smallish size. Castleton and Valor are medium. Empress and Coe’s Golden Drop are large.
I have several J plums and hybrids. Elephant Heart is a J plum. It is an excellent and large plum. Superior and Toka are hybrids. I would choose EH over Superior and Toka. Toka blooms over a week later than other J plums and hybrids in my location. However, it still blooms before Euro plums.
Although some plums such as Mt Royal is self fertile, it produces more having a pollination partner. That can be done via grafting. Grafting plums is about as easy as grafting apples or pears, to me.
My Toka blooms later but only by a day or two. It overlaps all the others here at least.
I have others that bloom later too like Vermont, Santa Rosa, and some pluots bloom really late, some really early, but all overlap here. I never realized it was a problem for others as it is not at all a problem here. Toka is blooming right now here, so is everything else too.
There is no doubt in my mind that an E plum is the right ‘first plum’ for my location, given that generally they are what can succeed here and I will want to graft and try other varieties you all have been so good to recommend. The Mount Royal is really all I can get this year, anyhow.
Now… if in the future I decide I can find enough sunny space for a second tree, am I best off making it another E, or trying for something like the Elephant Heart, which is rumored to do so-so here, and then having a native J Plum that I can graft to? (I’m not clear if grafting J plums to E plums is as productive as J Plums on J plums)
What type of tree will Superior and Toka graft-to?
Mine is about 2 days ahead of Toka. Both are open right now. I never had fruit off it yet, looking forward to it. I think because we are so late here with spring everything is more than ready. My peaches are about to open too now. They seem later than normal.
For me Toka opens with Flavor Queen, Vermont, Favor King and Supreme, Santa Rosa, Superior, Dapple Jack and Dapple Supreme. I’m adding more pluots this year. Still too cold to graft.
I grafted Toka this year. Do you have Superior or Alderman to compare with? Superior first bloomed with Purple Gage here, as Shiro reached full bloom. Alderman bloomed 4 days later, as Shiro was beginning to drop petals. I am curious where Toka will fall in the order.
For me Splash, Lavina, Fall Fiesta, Dapple Dandy, and Satsuma, bloom first but only a few days ahead usually. All the rest bloom a little later. So I actually have more bloom with Toka than do not bloom with Toka.
I do but all blooms are local! I have Superior and it blooms maybe a day earlier than Toka here. Mamuang seems to have good separation in times so easier to put in bloom order.
They tend to bunch bloom here. Which is great for pollination. Speaking of Such I really like Spring Satin, Santa Rosa, Toka and the Dapple series. So I collected pollen off of Dapple Dandy and Dapple Jack. I like the Dapple series because of size and ease of bloom here. I like the taste too! They must be thinned though else you’ll get that every other year thing going. I want to cross the Dapples with the former three. I like growing out seeds. Although I have killed a lot of seedlings!
I might get to try a few more plums too and hopefully add to my favorites. Curious about some like Inca, Vermont and Hollywood.
Black Ice bloomed 2ish days before Shiro, and looks like it is setting fruit. I also have grafts of LaCrescent, Hollywood, and Nadia. Maybe next year I will know when they bloom. I would love to grow some of the good J plums, but I want good fruit more than 1 year in 3. Anything that blooms early has to survive the cold/wet weather, and occasional late Winter warm spells/freezes. If we had last year’s February, only Alderman & maybe half of Superior would have blooms this year.
It would take a hard frost below 25 probably to end the growing and ripening season for any Euro plum. All common fruit tree varieties have a certain amount of anti-freeze in their leaves and fruit- as far as fruit, the more sugar the harder it is to freeze.
I would expect Empress to ripen in any Z6. Short or long seasons (early or late springs) it always ripens here in S. NY without any fear.
I have Purple Gage, Opal, and Green Gage. I will probably graft on to them.
I love juicy J plums, so I am trying the cold hardy ones. My neighbor’s Methley opened the same day as my Shiro, but mine is on St Julien A, and I think his is on Mariana 2624. Black Ice is on Mustang rootstock. I don’t know how that may affect bloom time.
I may add Flavor Grenade and Emerald Drop pluot, based on results I have seen from others in the region.
Your best bet is to find out what plum varieties do best from growers in your area. This includes an order of their bloom time.
As you can see when grown in different climate i.e. @Stan in CA and I am in MA, same fruit, different bloom time. Your local extension services probably have such the info for you.
Hey I hope you got your plum situation squared away. Superior and Toka can be put on either E plum or J plums. As far as Stanley goes I am not a fan. It makes a crop every year but it is still hard and tart sweet early mid September at my house. By the way my stanley is a mislabeled green gage. So it could be something else but it fits the stanley characteristics.
I got my first green gage last year from a graft onto the Stanley.
This year I removed almost all my Stanley limbs and grafted Superior, Toka, Howard Miracle, Methley, opal, Imperial Epineuse, Count Althans Gage, and Gracious. Well see what takes in a couple of weeks and what ends up working in the coming years. Mike
