Cold Hardy Plums and Cherry Hybrids: Spring Field Notes

mustang cherry, prunus 'jeffchum' in bloom

the fruit are similar to sapalta, slightly smaller and more stringent skin. I don't know for sure about the parentage, it's called out as something like sapalta x americana.. so if you planted seedlings of any cherry...

plum orchard year three on chokecherry rootstocks with interstems

first time there's been a bloom with some wild plums mixed...

american wild plum, and some juliette, bolshaya

nanking cherries are blooming, ahead of the wild plums and almost everything else

these and the haskaps, just as we've had a short amount of weather without frost. spring is a week late this year, will be interesting to see how softwood...

double flowering plums, just year old rooted plants and they're flowering in the bin while they wait to get planted out

I have thirty, so maybe put a dozen into pots for our fall sale and the rest into the ground for bare root next spring. this species of plum doesn't really make an edible drupe, it's a showy bush. I have a twenty five...

chokecherry as prunus rootstock for softwood production

double worked with interstems, this is a trial to root several hybrid plums from their softwood material. eurasia, delicate, kuban comet, mara, podarok st. petersburg. haven't heard of those? most are russian hybrids...

grafting sweet cherries, prunus avium onto pin cherry, prunus pensylvanica

a few russian types, so far survived -40 a...

manchurian apricot, it these trays four weeks now, just starting to stay warm enough at night to germinate

stored dry at around 10% m/c for 18 months in a fridge, then slowly increased moisture through dec, cold stratified jan-march with some damp vermiculite in the bags not soaking just damp, then into flats and kept...

canada wild plums from 2023-24 - plums sometimes have a deep dormancy, if a percentage of your seeds don't germinate

, store them until the next spring. These were sprouting just a few days after warming up above freezing, stored in our root cellar at around -1 to -3C (~30F) for the winter in a bag of damp...

sweet cherry leafing out after a winter with a dozen nights at -38, max -40C

leningradskaja grafted onto pin cherry about five ft off the ground. it's short because I cut back 3/4 to save and regraft, didn't exactly expect it to survive. so fun to have some sweet cherry growing, added a...

mustang on chokecherry with an interstem

flowering intensely, pretty sure this can...

bench grafted plums, done kinda late in the season but maybe the timing will work

second photo is apricots on sandcherry, just finished them so i'm done bench grafting for the year. now just field grafting.. about 30 ea new plum, pear and apple varieties...

lee red and garrington chokecherry racemes, compared to wild chokecherry

You can see the flowers have a much wider spacing, and...

cherry plum flowers

mustang, manor, sapa, sapalta, dura. any differences? maybe subtle ones, these are all sandcherry hybrids with various other...

prunus americana grafts one year old flowering

excellent for pollinating other plums, easy to graft onto chokecherry. i'm getting about 90% take and winter survival on these, the later photos are grafts...

a few plums flowering with different timing

green elf, toka, mustang. and a single apricot...

sweet cherry survived -40C and leafing out

it's grafted onto pin cherry I wonder if that improved the hardiness. my bluetooth thermometer logged at least half a dozen nights -38 and a couple -40 last winter, everywhere i've researched says sweet cherry winter...

western sandcherry, possibly the reclusive hansens bush cherry

they tasted excellent. here they sprouted in the bag and are overdue to pot up, the pink stems are cool...

canada wild plum stratified winter 2023 then again in 2024

the first year maybe 40% germinated, this spring the other 60%. this is why I like to keep large seeds in the bag until they start to germinate, sometimes the dormancy is so deep they need two cycles. I should note...

a hybrid plum with some simonii in the parentage (25%) growing well directly on chokecherry coming into year 3

will be grafting more of this one out as a potential interstem, toka thrives on chokecherry (50% Prunus simonii) but it's basically too vigorous. search for the perfect chokecherry compatibility continues...

nanking cherry plugs

they grew kinda good in a plug tray, thinking I'll do more this year and bundle them in 3 packs this fall, shrink wrap before storage for easy packing. deciding what to grow in a plug...

peaches, germinating in the fridge so ready to pot up

this seed source is identified as prunus davidiana...

interstem, bridging brookred plum onto chokecherry with a short section of toka

sour cherries just a few weeks old, collected from romance series varieties

these hybridized bush cherries are easy to grow from seed and in the upicks where I found seedlings to try they all had large fruit...

Manchurian apricots, sprouting in the fridge at 120 days stratifying so time to pot up

they don't need the shells removed, which just fall apart when ready. excited because these have good genetics. from a local zone 3 apricot orchard where a named cultivar was...

nanking cherries, potting up sprouty ones from the fridge

If this was april I would be doing them in the greenhouse, so trying these little plugs to see if they can hold on for a month in them. maybe I could have kept them in the fridge a few more weeks? probably better to...

nanking cherries under lights at 21 days, some getting their 4th set of leaves

western sandcherry from some tasty ones I found last summer

about one month old. we're growing these out to plant in the landscape and also for...

nanking at 4 weeks

wow they grow fast inside. outdoors the various stresses slow them down, under lights or a very controlled greenhouse...

two trays of canada wild plum, the first one (and the one full of trees) started early may, and the second one started

early april, spotty germination. letting plum seeds have a good long cold stratification period through until may is a better result. the april tray may all germinate eventually, but if they need more cold time...

plums just let germinate in a bag of peat moss in the shade, pulling out the sprouty ones to pot up

I had an air prune bed planted oct 2022 and this spring (18 months later) keep finding new seedlings in it, I suspect the bed froze too hard to fully stratify them being above ground and not well insulated, so last...

double flowering plum, Prunus x blireiana is a cool hybrid with japanese apricot

this is a bush I planted in 2004 at our old farmyard, neglected and never pruned it takes...

plums seeds planted fall of 2022 decided to germinate, surprised to find them hidden in this grassy bed so quickly

does this Id seem right

dwarf russian almond? growing in zn 3, always to excited to find a new Prunus species. found it growing in an old garden bed at my farm, overlooked I thought it was...

triple worked graft

choke cherry rootstock -> toka interstem -> mustang cherry flowering, second interstem -> apricots just grafted. mustang and last photo is sapalta flowering, unlike other plums these...

Juliette cherry, a bush cherry with an interesting parentage

We signed on to propagate these with u of sask...

plum flowering on chokecherry

the bag has an americana branch for...

attempting to graft swedish Leningradskaja sweet cherry onto pin cherry

It’s zone 4 hardy, maybe even 3/4. I have some slightly sprouted scions so wrapping in foil...

plum grafting in my trial block of chokecherry

a short walk through some of the grafts with interstems that are waking up, with many positive results. this week I’m adding more cultivars, and trying some manchurian apricots, which will be...

canada wild plum collected in the wild from a seemingly isolated population

maybe non hybridized, a great plum...

attempting pin cherry, Prunus pensylvanica from root cuttings

been preferring z graft as a variation of the modified cleft on larger stumps

this is Prunus americana on Prunus virginiana.. will take some better photos. If I just wait a couple of weeks these can be bark grafts, which are super fast and fun… I’m out field grafting daily for a...

first signs of spring, red elderberry and chokecherry buds swelling

red leaved chokecherry after three months cold stratifying starting to germinate

red leafed choke cherry seedling emerging, and you can see in the smallest leaves emerging they already have a high

root grafted prunus onto mustang cherry and some Nanking cherry this morning

I woke up and realized that I could probably trim the roots from small stock trees that were just potted up - to use up left over scions in the fridge and rest this method of grafting on prunus. The source plants are...

top working chokecherry this week

I have so much of it here, working to develop it as a resource with some in house propagation methods. One of my goal this summer will be to use this method to grow out softwood and trial many prunus species and...

toka plum interstem for cherry plum on chokecherry stock

trialing toka and a few others as...

chokecherry buds started to swell today in zone 3b southern Manitoba, they’re the first trees I’ve seen start to wake up

this gets things rolling for a grafting project, I have a pile of scion wood to trial on chokecherry for compatibility, and about 50% is going to have an interstem that proved compatible last year. There’s 2 goals: 1. to...

our air prune beds for American plums and acorns

these were level to the top in the snow last week...

One of my grafted Toka plum trees top worked onto choke cherry, start of July last year

Cherry blossoms at high park in toronto

bark grafts work well on larger stock and later on in spring when the bark is slipping, it just pos apart

in a satisfying way. This is Toka plum on choke cherry, before it was wrapped up. #grafting...

Patterson pride plum grafted on wild choke cherry three weeks ago

We’re running an experiment to see which varieties are most graft compatible and following up on them over time to learn if this can be truely viable for a cold hardy and prolific...

Saskatoon vs choke cherry

these two trees can be hard to tell apart, but this time of year the saskatoons / service berries have silver tips and the choke cherries have enlarged green buds pulling away from the branch. The...

grafting plums to wild rootstocks all week

The prunus virginiana are just about to lead out. Selecting only vigorous growing trees with 12-36” of growth last year. #grafting...

Cupid cherry blossoms, this one trained as a small tree although it’s more common to prune them as a bush cherry

Mount Royal plum just coming into leaf

Slowest plum to wake up this spring, and after our winter I was surprised it pulled through...

grafting plums onto wild choke cherries #grafting #chokecherry #backyardorchard

prunus virginiana in flower this week #chokecherry #blossoms

think I got all the Japanese garden elements going on with this cherry flowering over the new pond

It’s a work in progress. #japanesegarden...

prunus leafing out

started grafting a few days ago, we’re just waiting for trees to wake up and...