Cold Hardy Plums and Cherry Hybrids: Fall Field Notes

A new unnamed plum that has somewhat graftable to chokecherry, maybe fruit next year. the last couple photos are mustang on chokecherry with a toka interstem. experimental plum grafts in this test area are helping sort out chokecherry graft compatibility across all of the zone 3 hardy plums.

Sweet cherry grafts onto pin cherry, in zone 3. will they survive and fruit? no idea, possibly first time anyone has tried this specific combination of swedish varieties (hardy to at least -30C) on top of some wild pin cherry in a zone that reaches -42C most winters. 5 ft off the ground help with deer grazing, and can help with air temperature, but surely this is an exposed location at the end of our lane, fully above the snow, but sheltered by some tall trees. #sweetcherry #zonepushing

Black nanking have a nice red color in the fall, this is from the western sandcherry genetics, the other parent is nanking (prunus tomentosa) which have fuzzy leaves that stay more green.

The elusive Canada wild plum, note the leaf margins, smooth bumps are called crenate. it's hard to find isolated stands that aren't hybridized, these are from remote areas with no other plums for miles and are true to type. excellent native plum, my favorite tree, everyone should plant them in your landscape. I have a limited number available, grown from seed this year. #wildplum #canadawildplum #nativeplants

Siberian c peach, the most cold hardy peach species, we've planted it in a few places around the nursery to see if we can get fruit here in Manitoba / zone 3, maybe on a good year in a sheltered location. this one has tasty fruit. I have them in plugs and small pots ready to ship.

Manchurian apricot seedlings, sourced from Manitoba super cold hardy -45. just went live on our fall sale

Seedling plum tree I've named sokol, after the location. on a good year it's covered in 1-1.25" fruit, this year we had a spring frost and a light crop, and I just collected some from the ground, mostly just seeds by now. we have some seedling plums going up for sale this week, both american and canadian wild plum, seedlings from pembina, this plum 'Sokol', and a selection of grafted plums. also more stone fruit like siberian peach, apricot, nanking.

Canada wild plum seeds available. hard to find, usually I can just get enough to grow in the nursery. these are sourced from an old row of plums probably planted for rootstocks, I selected the trees that appear to be pure prunus nigra based on the leaves and fruit, there's probably a little hybridization but these were only these plums in the area. I've also restocked american wild plum, which are a little smaller, ripen sooner and have serrate leaf margins. shipping by letter mail. #canadaplum #native #wildplum

Nice fall color on these pembina plum seedlings. they'll likely grow a plum similar to pembina, deep red/purple with yellow flesh, good chance they'll be smaller, but I'm not sure how they were pollinated we got the seeds from an orchard. good for variety, or for grafting onto.

Cherry plums. a few kinds, half a dozen for sure. the leaves are starting to turn color, possibly they'll drop before we ship out depending on the weather. fall sale starts on the 22nd in canada. btw holding up these large plugs no problem, first year trying them. most of them are holding together very well. still deciding if I can just bag them, use shrink wrap or if they should go in a pot.

45 Plums ok this side of the new orchard, open sandy spot with bo irrigation so just heaped up the woodchips. taller one is a siberian peach. i think we you start an orchard and everything is small it either looks like nothing, or if you've been growing trees for a while you can easily imagine how it will look when they're all 8ft tall and spreading out

Seedling plums. sort of prunus americana but a little larger, darker, the skin is a little better, they ripened a bit later. is it a wild plum? sort of I think, it's like a gradient, these might be 75% american wild plum, it's a guess. starting to find more of these trees to collect from, I think the right category is just seedling plum. thinking I should just mix them together?

Prunus americana, wild plum. I've been growing a couple of selections that are graft compatible with prunus virginiana. it takes some years to grow out more scion wood but the process has exponential returns. I have so many prunus cultivars and species that I want to grow, so turning the forest of established chokecherry into a canvas with interstems is such a rewarding project. of note, the other wild plum prunus nigra doesn't seem compatible at all with chokecherry directly, but it might be with an interstem.

Video is triple worked prunus, two interstems between a chokecherry rootstock and apricot on top. this worked well. the other photos are z graft unions from this spring, plums onto chokecherry. it makes a strong union that heals quickly, it's in between modified cleft and whip & tongue #grafting

Sweet cherry growing on pin cherry. leningradskaja may survive the winter here, but if it doesn't I've collected scions early and can try again next year. in this way by serial grafting scion wood can be produced.. and in this case even without prunus avium rootstocks #grafting #sweetcherry

Mustang cherry bush, tripled in size this year. I started this as a stoolbed but decided to let it go, maybe we'll get fruit next year. It's prunus americana x cherry plum, and if crossed with nearby americana or toka the seedlings could make interesting material for new rootstocks or interstems.

Graft union with kyrgyz plum, prunus domestica, on top of a toka hybrid plum interstem. grew about 4 ft this summer, a way to collect scion wood. PD new growth has a soft almost fuzzy bloom and purple bark. this plum will likely die back to the union unless we get a very mild winter, but it's ok I can regraft it. the idea is to have some less cold hardy prunus growing to ship to warmer provinces, but also for future breeding. #grafting

Couple of Toka plum from this experimental tree. wow the fruity bubblegum flavour is distinct. grafted onto chokecherry rootstock, the top is heavy and outgrowing the base so needs some steaking. So far the graft union is sound, and I'm seeing vigor settle down this year. Would have had a full crop with a pollinator nearby, adding americana grafts around for that. I have four of these 3 year old grafts and it's working, though I think Toka will end up being best suited as an interstem.

Western sandcherry, prunus besseyi. fully ripe, medium sweet with a mild cherry flavour, reminds me of very ripe garrington chokecherry. I can taste the similarity to sapa cherry plum. they're good, I want more of them. these ones will be for seed next spring. #sandcherry

Collecting plums for seed from this 'wild plum' tree, it has a good crop this year. Prunus americana is so interesting because it's always freely hybridizing snd mixing up its genetics with other prunus. here this tree is pollinated by other plums in town, and it's seedlings will likely have lots of genetic variation but the wild phenotype is usually prevalent

Sapa cherry plum

Photo 1+2 are prunus americana from different sources, 3 is canada plum, last one is a cherry plum. all collected locally so the trees are fully hardy to zone 3 -40 winters. #plums I've been offering just the first one on our seed shop, considering adding the others. canada plum is the most rare so if I do offer the seeds they'll be limited, mostly I want to grow those seedlings and even graft them. The fruit was collected from remote wild stands with almost no chance of being hybridized. I bet the cherry plum seedlings would also make good rootstocks.

Lifting more trees today, in order: Nanking cherry, ussurian pear. Most these we'll grow for a second year, some I think are big enough to offer on our site this winter. #bareroot #bareroottrees #treenursery

First ripe Toka plum of the season. I've grafted quite a few out the past couple years but only have a handful of fruiting branches so far. Does have a cool bubble gum flavour. #plum

Can you identify these plums? They're from a 30 yr old tree in a small town southern Mb, zone 3. Tree is big 20x15', plums are very sweet, fully ripe with some red and yellow color, a bit variable size, and just ripened this week. #plums

More success rooting domestic plum cultivars at 6 weeks under mist, last two weeks on bottom heat. Pitsin #10 and Skiba are varieties hardy to zone 3. These will harden off and get transplanted into beds, and I'll lift them and heel in for the winter. there's a good chance these will get some frost damage this month, will see how well they harden off or if they start up some new growth, not out of the woods yet. We have 5 cold hardy varieties of domestic plums on their own roots growing with this method, all started from dormant scion wood this May. #propagation #plumtree #mistpropagation #softwoodpropagation #ownrootsfruittree #ownroots #coldhardyplants #backyardnursery