I was digging around in our "miscellaneous manuals" drawer to figure out what type of pool sweep me have, because I needed to order some swivels for the hose. In addition to that, I found the secret to saving our plum tree from another fruitless year.
There is a paper in the drawer from "Trees of Antiquity," stating the heritage fruit trees in the back yard.
- Hauer Pippin apple (we already knew this was a Pippin)
- Ashmead's Kernel apple (appears to be long gone)
- Elephant Heart plum (otherwise known as a Blood plum), which according to the website is grafted onto Marianna, but they say it pollinates really well with a Santa Rosa.
- Santa Rosa plum (appears to be long gone)
(- Burgundy plum, which we planted and is very young)
I hadn't known the types of plum that were on the plum tree, so in delight I researched these cultivars. Turns out that the "root stock" third of the tree that the landscapers cut off directly against our wishes was Marianna, and the 2/3rds remaining is the Elephant Heart. Dang, that Marianna made the best jam.
But then...
There is one major drawback to an Elephant Heart plum... it is not self-fertile. So when they cut off the root stock, they basically ruined the entire tree's ability to fruit!
They did give us another plum tree, but it is very young and does not flower at quite the same time as the Elephant Heart.
What to do now?
It appears that I have 4 options.
- Figure out a way to encourage the Marianna root stock to grow back. Due to the severe cutting the tree had last year, it was supposed to encourage the root stock to grow back, but it did not. There may be other techniques I can use, and this would by far be the most convenient method.
- Wait until next year, and the next, and the next, see if our new young Burgundy tree grows enough to have more flowers for a longer period with which to pollinate the Elephant Heart. They're both Japanese varieties, so they're compatible.
- Graft a Santa Rosa or Marianna to the Elephant Heart or Burgundy.
- Find and plant another Santa Rosa, and wait for it to mature. This would be difficult, since there is not room in the backyard for a third plum tree, and we still have to find places for the potted pomegranate and meyer lemon. I wonder if our neighbors behind us would accept a gift of us planting a baby plum in that corner of their yard.
What else to do? Lots of deep breathing. This new knowledge has ripped open the wound I felt when I first came home to discover that they'd destroyed the best-tasting part of the tree that made jam that tasted incredibly close to my grandma's jam. Yeah, that may seem like an over-reaction, but I'm a nature-lover and trees are my buddies, and we told those landscapers specifically to leave the fruit trees alone.
I will just consider myself lucky that the mysteries of the plum types and missing plums have been solved.
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