Topic: Growing greengage reine claude from seed (or stone)

[cestrian]

I have just got back from two weeks in the south of France, where I fell in love with greengage or reine claude as the French call them, beautifully sweet little green plums. You can't seem to get them over here, but I brought some stones back with me and was thinking of trying to grow them from seed.

Has anyone had any luck growing greengage from seed (or stone)? If so any tips would be appreciated.

[galina]

Sorry not addressing your question whether you can grow them from a stone, but your assumption that they are unknown here.

I have a tree of Cambridge Gage and they are very good:
http://www.keepers-nursery.co.uk/cambridge-gage-plum-fruit-trees.aspx

Generally speaking growing from an apple (even more so from a pear pip) is a gamble.  Growing from stones less so.  You will get a greengage but no guarantees on how tall the tree gets or how good the flavour is.  It is a gamble, but if you have the space, give it a try.  It varies but will take about 5 years from a stone to first harvest.  In the USA people are doing it all the time with peaches.  I have grown hedge plums (myrobalan plums) from stones and that has worked fine and the fruit is quite similar to the plums that were the source of the stones.   

[Obelixx]

Unless you are prepared to wait several years and gamble on having planted a duff, I'd suggest you buy a small tree from a reliable nursery, plant it well and enjoy fruits from next year.

Plant the stone anyway.  You may get a wonderful plum but it'll be along time till you find out.

[Digeroo]

Most plums are grafted onto root stock.  Huge numbers of seedlings are sown and then the very very best chosen to take on further.  The chance that a seedling will be a great plum are quite small.  Though the famous bramley apple turned up by chance in a garden. 

I am with the others, buy a green gage they you will be eating them in two or three years.   Then sow your stones and prove us all wrong.   I used to eat the plums straight from my plum trees and plant the stones all over the place, but I have never seen a plum seedling.   

[chriscross1966]

Wild plums come true from seed, i.e. damsons, cherry-plums, sloes, some of the gages, bullaces etc.... named varieties generally don't.... also wild plums, with the honourable exception of the sloe tend to be pretty big trees...

[cestrian]

thanks for the replies. when I said I haven't seen them over here, I meant in the supermarket or the grocers, but saying that I did pick up some british plums from Lidl yesterday, which were smaller than the variety you usually get in the supermarket, almost like a bullace.

Anyway i will take your advice and get a grafted greengage, but I will probably plant the stones too and see how they turn out. I love an experiment. 

[Robert_Brenchley]

I saw greengages on sale in the local market last week. They're far from a commercial mainstay, but they're around in season if you look hard enough. I planted a Cambridge Gage from the local Homebase years back; it's a flourishing tree now.

[Vinlander]

Cambridge Gage could be passed off as a mini-mango to a blind tasting . Old greengage is supposed to be good but harder to grow. Most of the other gages are good but larger and the flavour can be less intense. Dennisons Superb is a massive disappointment to me because it tastes stewed when it isn't.

The problem with buying plums is that no producer wants to pick them ripe -  they would disintegrate during transport and no retailer would buy them. Even if you wrapped them individually in cotton wool they would probably be well over-ripe by the time you bought them.

There's only one tree fruit I know that you can pick when it's rock hard but will become ripe in storage without loss of flavour - it's the pear - and that's the reason I don't plant pears - it's the only fruit I prefer to buy.

Everything else tastes better straight off the tree.

Plums and gages are at the opposite end of the spectrum from pears - it is just possible to pick them at the very first sign they are no longer rock-hard and let them ripen up a few days later but it is very hit and miss.

Why do you think greengrocers prefer to stock Asian plums? They are nearly totally bland compared to European (actually Eurasian) ones - but they aren't too sour to eat and don't go soft for ages and they might ripen up a bit.

The commercial jackpot stone fruit is the pluot or plumcot. The crossing-in of apricot genes to Asian plums gives them a good flavour without destroying the ability to ripen off the tree (I'd love to pick and try them myself but as it is they are still more than good enough to be worth buying).

Apparently and unfortunately European plums are too multiploid (diploid?) to work the cross.

Cheers.

[jennym]

I grew greengages, Reine Claude Doree I think it was called, a lovely sweet greengage.
The tree was bought from a good nursery, forget which one, possibly Keepers, I know I got it mail order.
It started producing after I'd had it about 5 years, and it must have been 2 years old when I got it, but well worth the wait.
It was grown on a London clay based soil.
I googled Reine Claude Doree, and got plenty of results.

[Marlborough]

I was given some greengage stop taste yesterday and I loved them, going to treat myself to a tree.  I much preferred them to plums