North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Steve <sdw12986@aol.com>]

> Doug Woodard wrote:
> > Stanley is a shade hardier than Mount Royal (though liable to black 
> > knot, and from my limited observation not very good quality on peach 
> > soils at least for fresh eating) and if I remember rightly it came from 
> > a cross between Prune D'Agen and Grand Duke; (I forget the direction) 
> > i.e. old European plums.
Then
Claude Jolicoeur wrote:

> I am not so sure about the hardiness of Stanley, as I had one and it died.
> I can't guarantee it's the cold that killed it however. But my feeling is
> that Mont-Royal is quite hardier. Your memory is right about the genealogy
> of Stanley - Grand Duke is an old English plum mainly used for cooking - is
> it grown in Ontario?
> Claude

I suspect that Claude is right. I never tried a Stanley here because I 
had no reason to believe they were hardy enough.
I did try Mount Royal and it was a wonderful tree for about 15 years. 
Doug, I think you are underestimating just how hardy Mount Royal really 
is. I have a min-max thermometer that, back then, was wired right on the 
Mount Royal tree. In its first 5 or 6 years that thermometer recorded 40 
below zero two different years. Also it was in an exposed location with 
nothing to block the west or north wind that blows across a frozen lake.
That tree produced a good crop almost every year. I seem to recall it 
had a sparse crop after those 2 coldest winters. Finally,the tree 
started getting cracked, then dead, bark on the upward facing surfaces 
of the main scaffold limbs. This did not start after a very cold winter. 
I always wondered what caused that. It's been dead for about 5 years now.

Steve in the Adirondacks (usually zone 4a)