Dallas Fruit and Vegetable Grower

Summer Fruit: Peaches, Figs & Pears

The summer brought a bounty of fruit this year.

Early summer started with a good crop of blackberries.  The blackberries usually ripen in June and with three varieties, produce for three or four weeks.

Our blueberries produced a modest crop.  I had to replace approximately a third of the bushes last fall because of the heat and drought of the previous two years that had taken their toll.  I removed the drip lines that irrigated the blueberry bushes and replaced them with pop-up spray heads.  The drip lines were not reliably getting adequate moisture to the plants.  As a result of the spray heads, the bushes have done much better this year through the summer heat.

We had only a small plum harvest this year.  From seven trees, I probably only harvested 15 - 20 fruit.  There were several more on the trees, but the varmits got to them.  We had a huge crop of plums last year, and I think that caused the trees to take this year off to recuperate.

We will not get many apples this year.  The varmits really go after our apples.  They got almost all of the early ripening fruit.  However, I did harvest a couple of beautiful, small, red Williams Pride apples, which is a very early season variety.

Nevertheless, our peach crop was enormous.  That is the benefit of having a lot of different kinds of fruit trees and bushes.  Invariably, each year, certain fruits just will not produce anything.  As disappointing as that may be if you have some favorites, you are  almost guaranteed to be successful with other fruits in that same year if you have several kinds of fruit growing.

Whereas the plums were our banner "crop" last year, the peaches won the prize this year.

We have five mature peach trees and two  young trees.  The five mature trees really put on a show.  

The Jefferson, Springold, and Ranger trees are very vulnerable to varmits because the varmits can get to them easily without being seen or exposed.  Consequently, the birds, squirrels, and possums are fat this year from eating so many peaches.  However, the Sentinel and Redhaven are more exposed, and we were able to harvest the majority of their peaches before any animals got to them. 

The peaches ripened four weeks later than they have in prior years.   Dallas had late freezes this year in late March and early April, and I think this caused the later harvest.

 

The two photographs above are of the Sentinel tree.  You can see the branches weighted down by the fruit.  I  probably should have thinned the fruit earlier in the year, but I did not do it because I did not know how much of the fruit would be shared with with critters.  If we get this big of a harvest next year, I will thin the trees more. 

 

The photographs above and below are of the Redhaven tree.  One of the main branches really bowed under the weight of the fruit.  I also suspect that the weight of a climbing possum caused it to bow even more.

The photograph below really shows how prolific the trees were. 

I tend to harvest the fruit when they give a little to touch.  The Sentinel peaches below had less red blush than the Redhaven. 

 

 

Our fig trees were also very prolific.  We have five fig trees, but only two of them are very mature.  The nursery mislabelled the two mature trees, but as I have mentioned in the past, I think they are Lattarula/Italian Honey figs.  They ripened over a three to four week period in July.  When ripe, they get bright yellow and have an amber interior.  They are very sweet.  Some of them weep a milky liquid when picked, as you can see with a couple of them in the photograph below. 

 

We also had a very large pear crop.  It was a crop of impressive, huge pears.

We have four mature Orient, Warren, Monterrey, and Moonglow trees.  We also have four young Pineapple, Kieffer, Seckle, and Magness trees.

The Warren, Monterrey, and Moonglow all produced only a few  fruit, but the Orient tree was the real star of the summer.  It probably produced about fifty 10-14 ounce fruit, some of which are in the photographs below.

As with planting a lot of different types of fruit, you also benefit from planting several varieties of the same type of fruit.  In addition to helping with pollination, you never know which tree is going to have a good year.  If you increase the number of varieties in your "orchard", you increase your chances of success. 

 

 

 

Plums in 2012

It has been an incredibly busy few months which is why I have not been posting very much.  Nevertheless, a lot is going on in our suburban garden and orchard.

We had a huge crop of plums in 2012.

Our biggest producer was the Morris plum, but we also received fruit from our Allred, Santa Rosa, and Bruce plum trees.

The Allred was the first to ripen and produced ripe red fruit  (which  are pictured above)  from approximately May 1st through May 15th.  Our Allred is still a fairly small, young tree.  It produced exceptionally small fruit this year.  The fruit went relatively untouched by the birds because the red leaves of the tree hid the ripening fruit from sight.

The Morris, Santa Rosa, and Bruce ripened approximately two or three weeks after the Allred and essentially ripened at the same time -- from approximately May 20th through June 10th.  The fact that they are ripening at the same time is a bit disappointing to me in that I had hoped to stagger out ripening times to avoid an onslaught of an individual fruit and extend the fresh eating time for each fruit.

The Morris and Allred were planted in 2009 while the Santa Rosa and Bruce were planted in 2010.   The difference in one year has been dramatic, and is even more pronounced because the Morris and Allred were larger trees at planting time.

Prior to this year, I think I may have had a handful of plums on both the Allred and Morris.  When I say a handful, I mean 10 to 20 all of which were devoured by birds, squirrels, possums, etc.

Earlier this year, I posted photos of the Morris in bloom, and it was loaded with blooms:

 

 

 

 

As the Spring progressed into Summer, the Morris became burdened with ripening fruit.  The tree branches which wanted to shoot straight toward the sky like a water-spout became bent and lowered as they were burdened by the weight of the ripening fruit.

 

We harvested a huge amount of fruit over four weekends.  I didn't keep count, but there might have been anywhere from 200 to 400 fruit that we actually harvested.  There was significantly more that was composted or discarded because the squirrels and birds had gotten to them first.

We ate the majority of the fruit fresh and gave away plenty more to good friends.  The rest was made into plum preserves.  Some we just did not get to eat or preserve in time because it was such a large deluge of fruit in a short period of time.

Next year, if I can get prepared, I wouldn't mind trying to make some plum liquour or plum wine.

Additionally, I plan on taking additional steps next year to increase the size of the fruit.  Because we had never gotten a crop of any size in the past, I did not bother to thin the blooms this Spring.  Consequently, we had too many blossoms that turned into fruit which taxed the tree and resulted in smaller fruit.  Next Spring, I will think the blossoms more diligently.

I think I will also prune the tree a little more aggressively this winter.  I will have to read up on pruning plum trees, but I think that pruning more of the smaller branches may help reduce the number of fruit and increase fruit size.  I also want to prune the canopy to keep it lower than 12 feet.  The Morris is now close to 15 or 17 feet.  It was a challenge harvesting all of the fruit with only a 10 foot ladder.

I thought the Morris, Santa Rosa, and Bruce were comparable in taste.  Possibly, the Santa Rosa and Bruce were incrementally superior in taste.  These three varieties were clearly superior in taste to the Allred, in my humble opinion, but I could have been prejudiced by the significantly smaller size of the Allred. 

In going back to an earlier post, here is what I had written about these varieties based upon what others had written on them:

Morris:    A reddish-black skinned, medium-large sized plum with red flesh.  It ripens early, and its flesh is firm, somewhat dry, and crisp with good flavor.  It is a large tree that requires 800 chilling hours and a pollinator. 

Santa Rosa:    Reddish purple skinned, very large plum with reddish/pink flesh.  It ripens mid-season, and its flesh is fine-textured and aromatic and has a very good flavor.  It is partly self-fertile and only requires about 300 chilling hours.  It is a large tree that was introduced by Luther Burbank.

Bruce:    A red skinned, large sized plum with yellow flesh.  It ripens very early, and has good taste.  A medium sized tree that requires a pollinator.  Introduced in Texas, and it is believed to be a cross between Abundance and Excelsior.

Allred:    A red skinned, small plum with red flesh.  It ripens early, and its flesh is sweet-tart that is better for processing.  Its leaves are red making it an unusual and nice ornamental selection.  A medium sized tree that was introduced by Wolf Nursery in Stephenville, Texas.

We are also growing a Toka plum, a Shiro plum, a Cambridge Gage, and a Reine Claude Doree; however, these trees are still very immature.

Here is what has been written about those varieties:

Cambridge Gage:    A green skinned, medium sized plum with greenish yellow flesh.  It ripens in late mid-season with dense, firm flesh and that rich gage flavor.  It is a medium/compact sized tree and partly self-fertile.

Reine Claude (Green Gage):    A green to golden yellow skinned medium-large plum with greenish-yellow flesh.  It ripens mid-season with a richness of texture and flavor and an abundance of juice and aroma.  Considered unsurpassed.  A small to medium sized tree that can be delicate and vulnerable to sunscald.

Shiro:    Bright yellow skinned, medium sized plum with light yellow flesh.  It ripens very early and has a pleasant taste.  Juicy, somewhat melting, sweet and mild flesh.  Medium to large sized tree that can be susceptible to brown rot.  Pollinate with a japanese type plum.  Developed by Luther Burbank.

Toka:    Blue-black skinned, large sized plum with amber flesh.  It ripens late with a mild and medium sweet flavor.  It is a medium to large sized tree that is slightly susceptible to brown rot.

 

Early Fruit Set

After being out of town for close to a week, I came back to find several of our fruit trees having set small immature fruit.

When I left, the majority of our spring blossoming fruit trees and bushes were blossoming with the exception of our apples and a few of our pear trees.  Upon our return, most of them continue to bloom, including the peaches, several  of our pears, plums, cherries, nanking cherry, blueberries, honeyberries, and grape vines.  Our apricots have finished blooming.  Several of the earlier blooming peach trees are starting to have their blossoms fade.

But in walking through the garden, I was very, very surprised to see many of the earliest blooming fruit trees already setting fruit on March 18th.  This is much earlier than in years past.

The photograph above is of some of the immature fruit on our Reliance peach.  I frankly do not remember the reliance producing very many blooms, so I was surprised to see these fruit.  Our other peaches are also showing immature fruit, but on a much smaller scale.

 

Both our Moorpark and Blenheim have also set a lot of small immature apricots.  This is gratifying to see given that we really did not have any production from either of these trees last year.  The photograph above is from the Blenheim.

 

 

Our hybrids are also showing small fruit, including the pluots, apriums, and nectaplums.  The fruit in the photograph above is from our Spice-Zee Nectaplum.

 

Our figs are also starting to show some breba fruit.

 

I am just blown away by how early the fruit are coming in.  I was somewhat worried by our mild winter and early spring that we would not get much fruit this year.  However, it appears that some of my fears were misplaced.  While the jury is still out on how our apples and pears will do, we should get a pretty good crop from our apricots, plums, hybrids, and peaches . . . as long as we can fend off the varmits and insects.

This also goes to show that pollination was not an issue.  Our local insect population is doing their job, whether it be honeybees, mason bees, other bee types, or moths.

Dallas Fruit Trees in Bloom - March 5, 2012

A week ago, some of my plums, pluots, and apricots were beginning to bloom, and I wrote about how I was worried that they would not be pollinated because of the lack of pollinators that had emerged from winter and because there were not enough cross-pollinating fruit trees to lend a hand.

I went out of town at the end of the week and returned to an abundance of blooms.  Also, the native bees were out in force, industriously visiting all of the blooms.  If you look very closely at the Morris plum in the photograph above, you can count at least eight bees swarming in the air around these blossoms.

A large number of our plums are now in bloom, including the Morris, the Bruce, the Santa Rosa, and the Allred.  Here is another photograph of the Morris along with a photo of the Allred in bloom seen through the still-dormant fuzzy kiwi vines and burgeoning Jefferson peach blossoms.

 

 

 

Although the Allred above has pink blossoms, our other plums have beautiful, white blossoms as you can see below. 

 

 

Our Royal Lee low-chill cherries also have lovely white blossoms as featured below.

 

 

 

 

I must say, however, that our Royal Lee and Minnie Royal trees have been very disappointing to me this spring.  We planted 5 of them last spring in 2011.  They did very well during the growing season despite the intense heat and drought, and they put on significant growth.  Nevertheless, this spring, the majority went straight to leafing out without any blossoms.   A single Royal Lee was the sole exception, producing the blossoms that you see above.   

If you look very closely at the photograph below, though, you can see that the tree has very few blossoms.  It is not clear to me why these trees did not produce more blooms.  It should not be a result of the mild winter weather because these cherry varieties should only require 200 to 300 chill hours, which we had.  It is not the result of my pruning, which was very light.  I am perplexed.

 

 

Our remaining cherry tree, the Compact Stella, has neither leafed out nor blossomed at this point.

 

In contrast, all of our peach trees have burst into bloom, or are about to do so.  Our Sentinel peach  has the greatest number of blooms followed by our Saturn.  The Springold, Ranger, Jefferson, Redhaven, and Reliance are just a bit behind the Sentinel.

 

The tree and blossoms below are of the Sentinel peach.  As you can see from at least one of these photographs, our local bee population is hard at work.

 

 

   

 

 

 

The photograph below is of Redhaven peach blossom buds that are very close to blooming.

 

 

As I mentioned a bit earlier, the Saturn peach -- also known as a Peento -- has really had a dramatic bloom this Spring.  It is still a very small tree, but the number of blooms and the striking color of the blooms have impressed me.

 

 

Our two mature apricot trees continue to flourish in bloom.  The Blenheim added more blossoms since the last photographs that I shared, and the Moorpark apricot is also now in bloom.  The first photograph is of the Blenheim and the remainder are from the Moorpark.  My guess is that I'm going to get a good set of fruit from these two --- but we'll see.

 

 

 

 

These apricot blossoms remind me somewhat of fuschia flowers with their combination of red and white coloring.  The blossoms are also somewhat akin to an apple blossom that starts pink and matures to white, but differ in that the apricot blossoms maintain the red coloration much longer.

Nearby, our Cot-N-Candy aprium has really had unusual bloom structure this year.  With the way that the blooms completely cover the branches, it almost reminds me of a delphinium flower.  You can see what I mean from the photograph below.

 

 

 

These blooms have been particularly attractive to the bees.

The apricots, apriums, and pluots are all near each other, and they are producing a heavenly scent in the air.

 

 

 

We have several Blue Velvet and Blue Pacific honeyberry bushes growing around the vegetable garden.   Although they are three years old, they are still very petite bushes.   Indigenous to northern climates, I think they may be stunted by our intense summer heat.

The photograph above is of a honeyberry blossom before it opens.  The photograph below is of opened blossoms.

Also known as blue honeysuckle, you can see the similarities between its blossoms and a honeysuckle blossom.

 

 

Our blueberry bushes have set many, many blossoms.  I love the bell shaped look of blueberry blossoms because they are so unique.

 

 

Our Nanking cherry bushes are also filling with delicate white blossoms.  These are still very young bushes, so they look rather sparse in the photographs.  Later in the year, these 8 or 9 bushes will produce white cherries which are less attractive to the birds; however, I also plan on planting two red cherry varieties to help with pollination.  Last year, although the white Nanking cherry bushes bloomed prodigiously, they did not produce any fruit.

 

Last, but not least, at least one of our pear trees is blooming.  Our Orient pear has set a fair number of blooms.   Because of the sunlight, you have to look very carefully to see the blooms in this tree, but it actually has a decent number of blooms.

 

 

We have a fair number of pear varieties growing in our yard -- Orient, Warren, Monterrey, Moonglow, Pineapple, Kiepfer, Seckle, and Magness -- however, only the Orient has bloomed this Spring.  Last year, we did not have very many blooms, either.  I am concerned that the trees may not be getting enough sunlight because they essentially have a northern exposure resulting from nearby ornamental trees and bushes.  Until these pear trees grow a little taller, they may continue to be sunlight challenged. 

February Apricot and Plum Blooms

It is February 29th, and our apricots and plums are blooming.

I mentioned two weeks ago that one of our pluots was blooming.  Now the apricots and plums are starting to bloom as well.

The Blenheim apricot started blooming first.  The photograph above is of Blenheim blooms.  The photographs below show the size of this tree that is 3 years old in the ground.  I have also attached another photograph of some Blenheim blooms.

 

 

Our Moorpark apricot is also starting to bloom, but only ever so slightly.  A photograph of our Moorpark is found below.

 

 

 

Our plums are also starting to bloom.  Our Morris plum has also been in the ground for three years, and it has grown the fastest of the plum trees.  It also is in bloom with very small, white blossoms.

 

 

 

If I had to bet, I think the last of the cold weather is behind us.  The forecast for this week is warm and warmer temperatures.  While we might still get some temperatures in the mid and high 30s, I seriously doubt, at this point, that we will get any more really hard, killing freezes that could cause damage to the fruit blossoms.  

My biggest concern at this point is whether enough of our native pollinators are out working.  I have seen a few bees gathering around the dandelions, but I have not seen them working the fruit trees.  I installed a Mason bee "nest" last summer, and its tubes were half full of coccooned eggs; however, I really have not seen them hatched in large number, yet.

Early blooming in 2012 -- Bad news

 

Well, it appears that at least one  of my fruit trees is confused by this last week of warm weather.  The tree in the photograph above is a 4-in-1 pluot purchased three years ago from Raintree, that turned into a 3-in-1 pluot after one of the grafts failed.  The tree is a combination of Splash, Emerald Drop, Flavor Grenade, and Geo Pride, and I do not know which one of these was the graft which failed.

If you look closely, you can see that one of the grafts is in full bloom.  This is not good.  There is nothing else blooming now to pollinate it.  Also, there are very, very few bees out right now.  In December, I saw a honeybee in some of the salvia nemerosa that have miraculously continued to bloom throughout the winter.  But that was it.  And I feel confident that our mason bees are not ready to hatch.  Further, a hard frost may destroy the flowers or any emergent fruit.

The bottom line is that unless we do not get another really hard freeze and/or snow, I will probably not get any fruit from these blooms this year.  I strongly suspect that we will get some hard, cold wintry weather before the winter is over this year.  (Since late November, we have had pretty consistently cold nighttime temperatures into the high 30s and low 40s, but we have not had that big snow or ice storm or temperatures in the teens or 20's, as in years past.)

This pluot has been the first tree to bloom for the past few years.  However, last year, it did not start to bloom until the very end of February, as you can see in this post - Blooming Pluot.  And last year was earlier than usual!

I cannot remember  which of the varieties this fruiting graft  is because I did not mark them before someone in my household removed the tags - I have learned from this mistake.  Geo Pride requires 550 hours of winter chilling, but I have not seen written anywhere when its bloom time is.  Here is a nice photo of a Geo Pride - photo.  Flavor Grenade requires 600 chilling hours and blooms in "early mid-bloom season" - photo.   Emerald Drop requires 700 chilling hours and blooms in "mid bloom season" - photo.  Finally, Splash has a chilling requirement of 650 hours and blooms in "mid bloom season" - photo.

Given that the other three are mid-season bloomers, my guess is that this is the Geo Pride that keeps blooming early.  So why is this tree blooming early?  From what I have read, this early bloom can results from several factors -  a variety that is an early bloomer (different varieties have different profiles for when they bloom each year in comparison to other varieties); how many chill hours the tree requires; and whether there has been a break in the winter weather (warmer temperatures can fool a fruit tree into breaking dormancy; additionally, I have read that temperatures above 60 degrees during dormancy can even subtract chill hours from our chill hour totals).   Because we often have warm interludes during our winters in Texas and the South, our fruit trees can often be fooled to prematurely break dormancy if they are early bloomers; consequently, it is often beneficial to plant mid to late blooming varieties in the South.

As a side note, I am somewhat surprised that the Minnie Royal and Royal Lee cherries, which have very low chilling requirements (200-300), were not the first to break open their blooms.  They are reported by Dave Wilson Nursery to bloom 10 to 14 days before Bing, and cherries are typically early season bloomers.With their low chilling requirement, I feared when I planted them that they might bloom too early and then lose their blossoms with unexpected late frosts.  So far this year, they are not blossoming.  This is the first full spring following planting of these low chill cherries, so I am still learning about how they will perform in my garden.

The photograph below is a close-up of the pluot first blooms:

 

 

Growing plum trees in North Texas and Dallas

^{© iStockphoto  2011}

If you are planning to add some plum trees to your landscape, now is the time to order them.  Texas A&M recommends that bare-rooted plum trees be planted during the period between January 1st and February 15th and that containerized plants be planted between January 1st and March 31st.

In this post, I have listed the varieties that Texas A&M and several other growers recommend as being well suited for growing in North Texas and which have good or acceptable taste.  I have also listed several additional varieties that have been highly ranked for exceptional taste but that have not necessarily been tested or approved for our climate.

Plums Preferred By Local Growers

Richard Ashton, who owns Oak Creek Orchard, recommends Methley as probably the best plum for growing in North Texas.  He also comments that there are several of the Auburn University plums that have fairly good taste and will grow in North Texas.  Mr. Ashton does not care for Bruce's taste qualities, even though it is recommended by many extension agents and other growers.

 Bob Wells of Bob Wells Nursery has three favorite plum varieties.  He likes the Methley which he describes as dark purple and "the sweetest plum grown."  He also likes Morris which he describes as an extra large freestone plum with purple color.  Finally, he suggests Bruce which is an early ripening, large red plum. 

Dale and Judy Ham operate Ham Orchard in Terrell, Texas.  The Hams' favorite plum varieties for North and East Texas are Methley,Morris, Santa Rosa and Ozark Premier.

Glynn and Sandra Russell operate Newburn Farms in Center, Texas.  They prefer Ozark Premier with its large, golden meat and very sweet taste.  They are also in the process of adding Santa Rosa plums to their orchard.

Texas A&M has published several articles that recommend different varieties for Texas. 

In Recommended Fruit, Nut and Berry Cultivars for North Central Texas, they recommend: Morris, Methley, Ozark Premier, and Bruce.  In a separate publication, Texas A&M also recommends: Gulfruby, Gulfgold, and Allred.

The following is a brief description of these varieties:

Methley:    A purple-red skinned, medium sized plum with red flesh.  It ripens early.  It has juicy and sweet flesh, but the skin is astringent.  It is self-fertile and can be used as a pollinator.  It is a medium sized tree with only 150 chilling hours required to set fruit.  It can sometimes have problems with black knot in the north.

Morris:    A reddish-black skinned, medium-large sized plum with red flesh.  It ripens early, and its flesh is firm, somewhat dry, and crisp with good flavor.  It is a large tree that requires 800 chilling hours and a pollinator. 

Ozark Premier:    A red skinned, very large sized plum with yellow flesh.  It ripens mid-season, and its flesh is firm, juicy, and tart with good flavor.  The skin can be tough.  It is a cross of Methley and Burbank.  This is a medium sized tree.

Santa Rosa:    Reddish purple skinned, very large plum with reddish/pink flesh.  It ripens mid-season, and its flesh is fine-textured and aromatic and has a very good flavor.  It is partly self-fertile and only requires about 300 chilling hours.  It is a large tree that was introduced by Luther Burbank.

Bruce:    A red skinned, large sized plum with yellow flesh.  It ripens very early, and has good taste.  A medium sized tree that requires a pollinator.  Introduced in Texas, and it is believed to be a cross between Abundance and Excelsior.

Allred:    A red skinned, small plum with red flesh.  It ripens early, and its flesh is sweet-tart that is better for processing.  Its leaves are red making it an unusual and nice ornamental selection.  A medium sized tree that was introduced by Wolf Nursery in Stephenville, Texas.

Gulfruby:    A reddish purple skinned, medium-large plum with yellow flesh.  It ripens early, and its flesh is sweet with a bitter skin surrounding it.  This medium sized tree has a low chill requirement.

Gulfgold:    Yellow skinned with a red blush, this medium sized plum has yellow flesh.  It ripens mid-season, and it is the sweetest of the Gulf series which makes it well suited for dried fruit.  This small tree is susceptible to plum leaf scald.

 Varieties With Reputations As The BEST Tasting

 If you are interested in growing plums, Texan Richard Ashton has authored a great resource that provides an extensive list of plum varietals and their characteristics entitled Plums of North America.  What I do not know is how well suited these varieties will be for the hot, humid climate of Texas and the South.  The P. domestica varieties may have difficulty in our climate.  The japanese types, P. Salicina, typically perform better in the South.

Ashton rates the following varieties as having the very best taste of plum varieties:

Cambridge Gage:    A green skinned, medium sized plum with greenish yellow flesh.  It ripens in late mid-season with dense, firm flesh and that rich gage flavor.  It is a medium/compact sized tree and partly self-fertile.

Campagne (P. salicina):    A deep red skinned, large sized plum with yellow flesh.  It ripens early, and its fruit are juicy and aromatic with a good texture.  A medium sized tree with good resistance to disease.

Kahinta (P. salicina x P. americana):  A blue skinned, medium-large sized plum with yellow flesh.  It ripens early with a very good to excellent taste.  Its intense flesh has a spicy flavor which is more spicy than sweet.  It needs a pollinator, and is a small to medium sized tree.  It can be susceptible to brown rot, and its wood splits easily.

Morganhill:    Reddish purple skin with brown dots, this plum's flesh is greenish-yellow.  It has small sized fruit.   It ripens late with a sweet aromatic taste, and some say it has one of the best tastes.  It was introduced by Luther Burbank and is a medium sized tree.

Pearl:    A golden-yellow, medium large plum with deep yellow flesh.  It ripens mid-season on a medium sized tree.  Its flavor is very good to the best, with rich, sweet, luscious flavor and melting flesh.  Developed by Luther Burbank, it is believed to be a seedling of a Reine Claude plum.

Red Beaut (P. salicina):    Red over yellow skinned, this large fruited plum has yellow flesh.  It ripens very early with crisp flavor that is melting sub-acid and delicate.  It is a medium sized tree.

Reine Claude (Green Gage):    A green to golden yellow skinned medium-large plum with greenish-yellow flesh.  It ripens mid-season with a richness of texture and flavor and an abundance of juice and aroma.  Considered unsurpassed.  A small to medium sized tree that can be delicate and vulnerable to sunscald.

Reine Red:    Similar to Reine Claude but with red skin.

Ruby Queen (P. salicina):    A reddish black skinned, medium sized plum with dark red flesh.  It ripens mid-season with excellent sweet, balanced taste and a firm texture.  This medium sized tree requires a pollinator.

Superior (P. salicina):    A dark red skinned, medium sized plum with yellow flesh.  It ripens mid-season with very juicy, sweet, and firm flesh.   It is a large tree that may sometimes have problems with brown rot and split fruit.

Supreme (P. nigra hybrid):    A red over yellow skinned, large plum with yellow flesh.  It ripens mid-season with an excellent quality taste.  It is a medium sized tree.

Voyageur:    A dark reddish-purple skinned, medium-large plum with yellow flesh.  It ripens mid to late season and has juicy, firm, excellent taste with high sugar content.  A medium-large tree than can serve as a good pollinator forP.domestica.

Of additional interest, in an article in Mother Earth News, the author polled several growers who rated the top flavored plums to be:  

Au Rosa:    A red skinned, large plum with yellow flesh.  It ripens mid-season, and its flesh is firm and of good quality.  A medium sized tree with a winter chilling requirement of 750 hours.  It needs a pollinator and is generally well suited for the South.   

Methley:    (see above)

Purple Heart:    Dark reddish-purple skinned, medium sized plum with dark red flesh.  It ripens mid-season with firm, juicy, sweet and crisp flesh.  It is a small tree that is hardy and popular.

Shiro:    Bright yellow skinned, medium sized plum with light yellow flesh.  It ripens very early and has a pleasant taste.  Juicy, somewhat melting, sweet and mild flesh.  Medium to large sized tree that can be susceptible to brown rot.  Pollinate with a japanese type plum.  Developed by Luther Burbank.

Toka:    Blue-black skinned, large sized plum with amber flesh.  It ripens late with a mild and medium sweet flavor.  It is a medium to large sized tree that is slightly susceptible to brown rot.

Waneta:    Yellow with red blush skinned, medium to large sized plum with orange flesh.  It ripens mid-season with juicy and sweet flesh.  The skin is astringent. This small sized tree requires a pollinator.

 Other Varieties That Are Reputed To Have Very Good Flavor

Some of the other varieties reputed to have very good flavor in Richard Ashton's Plums of North America include:

Acme; Amador; Amazon; AU Amber; AU Homeside; AU Producer; Autumn Queen;.

Bavay; Black Jewel; Black Kelsey; Black Noble; Blue Bell.

Catalina; Champion; Crimson.

Duarte; Duarte Improved.

Early Transparent Gage; Eldorado; Elephant Heart; Emerald Beaut; Ersinger; Explorer.

Fiebing; Fourth of July.

Geewhiz; Geneva Mirabelle; Golden Nectar; Golden Transparent Gage; Grandoro; Green Sweet; Guthrie.

Hand; Howard Miracle.

Imperial Epineuse.

Jefferson.

Kappa; Kelsey.

La Crescent; Laroda; Longjohn.

Mammoth Cardinal; Mason Early Italian; McLaughlin; Meredith; Middleburg; Miller Superb; Mohawk; Monroe.

Newark.

Obil'naja.

Pembina; Perfection; Peters; Ptitsin 5; Purple Gage; Purple Heart.

Redheart; Reine Claude Conducta; Richards Early Italian; Rivers Delight; Royal Tours; Roysum.

Santa Rosa; Sergeant; Spaulding; Stanton; Stark MacVerna Delicious; Sugar.

Toyland; Transparent.

Valor; Vanier; Victor Large; Vision.

Washington; White Damson; Winona.

Yellow Gage.

Rootstock

When selecting your trees, it is very important to look closely at the rootstock upon which the trees are grafted.  The rootstock will dictate how large the tree will get.  You do not want to plant a tree that will get too big for the space in which you are placing it.  You will be very disappointed and, along with the additional work entailed, the additional pruning to keep its size in check may adversely impact fruit production. 

Cross-Pollination

While a few varieties are self-fertile, you are typically going to want to plant at least two varieties of plums trees to ensure proper cross-pollination and fruit set. 

Considerations When Planting

This is not intended to be a guide for planting a plum tree.  If you are looking for that kind of guidance, I recommend that you visit this link for a pretty thorough "how-to" primer.

Nevertheless, when you plant your trees, I encourage you to add compost and Mycorrhizal fungi to the backfill when you are planting.

Finally, in caring for your plum trees, I have found that the occasional spraying of Garrett Juice or compost tea seems to ward off problems for me.

Ideas on Nurseries

If you are looking for an instant orchard, your choices are limited.  Check now with your local nurseries to see what varieties they are or will be caring this Spring and in what sizes.  I typically only see 5 gallon containers in my local nurseries.

Bob Wells Nursery will often carry 5, 10, and 15 gallon trees, so you can try that.

Edible Landscaping also sometimes carries larger sized specimen.

If you are a more patient person and are willing to plant a smaller tree, there are a lot of options out there.  Some of them include:

Texas Nurseries:

Bob Wells Nursery 

Womack Nursery

Cummins Nursery

Caldwell Nursery 

 Nurseries Outside of Texas

Raintree Nursery

Trees of Antiquity

One Green World

Johnson Nursery

Chestnut Hill Tree Farm

Stark Brothers

Grandpa's Orchard

Bay Laurel Nursery

Big Horse Creek Farm

Cloud Mountain Farm

Burnt Ridge Nursery

Greenmantle Nursery

Southmeadow Fruit Gardens

Urban Homestead

If you have planted plum trees in Texas that are bearing fruit, please post a comment and share your experiences along with your favorite varieties for Texas.

 

Pluerries and Cherry Plums

© iStockphoto  2012

There was an interesting article on hybrid fruit growers last fall in the Wall Street Journal.  The article mentions Zaiger's Genetics, Bradford Farms, and Kingsburg Orchards.   Although the article doesn't mention him, Luther Burbank was the grandfather of them all.

You can read the article here:  When Apricot Met Plum . . .

The article mentions that Zaiger's is close to releasing a Pluerry -- a cross between a plum and a cherry.  However, I have not seen it marketed for sale anywhere, so I am wondering if it is still in development.

I am curious as to whether it will be a winner or not.

There are several Cherry Plum varieties on the market, already.  I have not tasted them, though. They are advertised to be more bush-like than trees, producing smaller plums.  Although they are not originally native to North America, I am curious if they are similar to Beach Plums - another native variety.   I have heard from at least one of you that you are growing some of these.  Womack Nursery in Texas sells the Hiawatha variety.

Dave Wilson Nursery also sells a couple of varieties of Cherry Plum hybrids which are listed as crosses of plums and cherry-plums - Delight and Sprite.

The following is another article I found listing out several different varieties of Plum-cherry crosses; however, it does not mention Hiawatha: Cherry-Plum Hybrids.

Finally, here is another article on Zaiger's Genetics: Zaiger Article.

If you are looking for a resource that lists all -- or at least a lot of them -- of the various plum hybrids and plum varieties that are available, a good starting place is Plums of North America by Richard Ashton.  Nevertheless, given that these breeders are cranking out new varieties every year, it is hard to keep track of them all, much less, catalogue them in a book.

Bloom Report for March 9, 2011

 

As of March 9, 2011, the majority  of our existing plums are in bloom.  This includes our: Santa Rosa, Bruce, Allred, and Morris (shown above).  Our AU Rosa and Toka are also starting to bloom.  However, the plums that I planted this Spring have not yet started to bloom:  Reine Claude Doree, Cambridge Gage, and Pearl. 

 

As I previously reported, our 4-in-1 pluot (Splash, Emerald Drop, Flavor Grenade, Geo Pride) was the first fruit tree to start blooming - around March 1st.  Our other hybrids are now starting to come in bloom, with my Cot-N-Candy aprium starting on March 4th .  Tri-lite peach plum, Cot-N-Candy aprium, Flavor Supreme pluot, Flavor Delight pluot are all now just starting to bloom.  The photograph above is of the Cot-N-Candy aprium.

 

Our Nanking Cherries started to bloom on March 5th.  These are young bushes, and you can see their blooms in the photograph above.  When these mature, they should put on quite a show, filled with blooms.

Our peaches are just starting to bud out.   Springold, Ranger, and Redhaven were the first to blossom starting around March 4th.  They still have not fully blossomed.  Ranger, Sentinel, and Jefferson are now starting to also bloom.   Seckle, Magness, Reliance, and Saturn look like they have a few more days before they start to bloom.

  

Our Redbuds also started blooming around March 4th, and our Star Magnolias were the first to bloom at the end of February.

Blooming Pluot Tree

It is hard to believe that two weeks ago, we were just coming out of almost two solid weeks of freezing temperatures.  In fact, there were some of the coldest days that I could remember in Dallas with the temperatures reaching as low as 12 degrees.  We also were hammered by an ice storm and an additional snow fall of almost 8 inches.

Texas weather can be mercurial, however, and our temperatures jumped into the 70's for most of the last 14 days.  This dramatic change in the weather for an extended period of time has my fruit trees thoroughly convinced that it is Spring.  My fruit trees and bushes are leafing out, and one of my pluots is in full blown bloom, as you can see from the photograph above.

This is a 4-in-1 pluot made up of grafts from four separate Zaiger pluots - Splash, Emerald Drop, Flavor Grenade, and Geo Pride.   Because the grafts were done in what appears to be a haphazard fashion, this tree has one of the worst limb structures, possibly in the world.  But the variety will make up for its homeliness. 

I was really surprised by how fragrant these blooms are.  I can be halfway across my yard from this tree, and with a light breeze, the yard is filled with a wonderfully light vanilla scent.

When I saw this pluot blooming, I was very concerned that its blossoms would not get pollinated because it is so early in the year.  I really had not seen any bees out at all.  And last year was a terrible Spring for bees, so I was worried that we might experience a similar dearth of bees this year as well.  In fact, I actually ordered some mason bees to help ensure that I have adequate pollinators for my fruit trees and bushes.

It appears that my purchase of the mason bees was not wholly necessary, because when I went out into the yard this afternoon, the pluot was surrounded by a wonderful mass of pollinators.  Butterflies and several kinds of bees.  I really have never seen anything like it, and I am not exaggerating.  There must have been 30 bees visiting the tree.  There is not that much blooming out there right now, so maybe all of these pollinators were drawn to the pluot out of sheer necessity.  Although I am not an expert on identifying bees, I believe there were honey bees, mason bees, and another type of very small bee which I had not seen before, working on the tree.

I've attached several photos from this afternoon that definitely confirm that Spring is here, or at the very least, near.

Our average last freeze date in Dallas is not for several more weeks, so I am very concerned about these early blooms.  My biggest concern is that the blooms will freeze before they are pollinated.  Alternatively, I want to look into what will happen if these blossoms are pollinated, start to fruit, and are then exposed to a freeze.