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["Alan Haigh" <alandhaigh@gmail.com>]

Elephant Heart plums are delicious when they don't develop those hard spots near the pits, a condition that Lon identified for me but my memory has lost temporarily.  Pitch something?

 

The E H plum I had that died was in the partial shade and the fruit was never flawed this way and wonderfully sweet and juicy.  It was almost always the favorite of visitors to my orchard who were comparing it very good Euros and Shiro.  Like many other red-fleshed Jap types and even Santa Rosa, E H is susceptible to damaging and sometimes lethal cambium damage- I think from severe early Spring frosts.  Damage has not coincided with severe winter temps.

 

When this vulnerability killed my shaded tree I placed a new one in the full sun thinking it might be even better but more than half of the fruit has been damaged by the afore mentioned ailment.  The quality of the remaining fruit will save it from the ax, however.  Still, it is no better than the former tree that received only half as much light.  They both flowered as early in the season as any other Jap plums and took a year or 2 extra to bear fruit.

 

Green Gage is a tree that has been a curse in my nursery because I have had 3 separate nurseries sell me false varieties in quantity.  The first was Miller that sent me some kind of very early ripening purple Euro plum of mediocre quality.  The last was Adams County, which really surprised me as they are generally quite reliable.  They sent me the Jap Green Gauges.  The G G's in my nursery now came from Cummins- I also trust Trees of Antiquity to have the real deal.

 

I have managed a couple Green Gage trees on other properties but haven't had an opportunity to properly assess them.  I've tasted a few fruits that were pretty good but not extraordinary.

 

The most promising new plum I'm growing is the Japanese variety Fortune.  Seems relatively cold-hardy (no cambium damage during seasons other plums show a lot).  None have died in my nursery and the fruit is as good as Elephant Heart to me but in a firm plum.  I wouldn't expect a firm plum to be so good and it is also big and beautiful.

 

Personally I like my best European and my best Japanese plums equally.