Topic: Plum trees

[Tulipa]

I am looking to buy a plum tree, it is to provide screening too so I will go for the St Julien A rootstock and I wondered if anyone could recommend one. 

Victoria and Marjorie Seedling seem good as they are both cooker and dessert.  I wondered if the Marjorie Seedling would be more reliable against frost as it flowers that bit later but I am not sure which would taste better.

I am open to any suggestions and am quite happy for you to tell me I have chosen the wrong ones!  Also any recommendations of where to buy.  Any help at all really!

Thanks.

[Robert_Brenchley]

Victoria's reliable and prolific, but the taste is a bit bland. Haven't tried Marjorie's Seedling.

[kenkew]

You want it for screening, Tulippa. Why the Julian A rootstock? What do you want from it? ( I have rootstock details here.)
And your choice of fruit, Victoria or Marg seed....well, Victoria is self pollinating and is an earlier flowerer than MS.
 MS needs one of the following which flower around the same time, ...Cambridge gaga, Early transparent gage, Giant prune, Kirke's blue or Oullin's golden gage.

[flowerlady]

http://www.blackmoor.co.uk/index.php 

Have always bought from these folk in the past, never had any probs,  their site makes interesting reading if nothing else!!  Hope it helps   :)

[Robert_Brenchley]

Margorie's Seedling  flowers  a bit later than Victoria, but according to my books it's self-fertile. Unless you live miles from other people you'd be unlikely to have problems with pollination in a normal spring, since plenty of people do plant one. In an abnormal spring like last year you'll get problems with any plum, as they flower early, and it was too cold for any pollinators to be out. I didn't get a single plum.

[Tulipa]

Ken, the sites I have looked at all only had Pixy or St Julien A rootstock and the latter is 3-4m tall from what I had read.  I would be interested if you have any more info on that.

There are plum trees in the next garden but they don't know which they are so I thought I would go for a self fertile tree to be on the safe side.  And they could always be chopped down so no good relying on them.

We have a Damson in the front garden (part of an old hedgerow) and it gets caught by the frost some years so I just wondered if going for a later flowering one would minimise the risk but I suppose it is the luck of the draw as we can get frosts any time.  The sun showed little white buds on the damson yesterday and it will soon be covered in blossom.

So it comes down to a good tasting self fertile plum that could reach about 15 feet and not worry about when it flowers.  Sorry I am rambling on here!

Our neighbours at the back are trying to sell their bungalow to a developer with an application to put 10 houses on the land so we thought we could plant a couple of trees and want to make the most of the space by planting productive trees.  The other will probably be a Bramley or Bramley seedling on MM106.  The sites I have looked at don't have anything taller than this and of course it gets more difficult to harvest if they are taller.  We are lucky that we have seven very old apple trees in the garden already (but not in the right place!) so will be ok for pollinating whichever apple we choose hopefully.

Flowerlady I have added your link to my favourites and will have a good look tomorrow when I can have the PC to myself for longer as the schools are back!  I like the fact that they dispatch on Wednesdays so will be ready for planting at the weekend - i will know when to have the holes ready!

Thank you all for your help, I knew you would all help me sort out what I need, that is what is so brilliant about A4all, no matter what the problem is people can usually help.  Thank you.

[grawrc]

We have Victoria but it tends to be biennial bearing: one year we have so many plums we don't know what to do and the next we have very few.

[Robert_Brenchley]

The reason it does that is that one year it has so many it exhausts itself, so it lacks the strenth to produce much the following year. By the third year, it's recovered, so once again it overproduces. Victoria is known for this, and the only remedy is to thin the fruit at an early stage.

[glow777]

Don't know about the technical specifics but I just bought a Victoria Plum from Morrissons today for £4.99 and I know Aldi have them in next week even cheaper