Fruit Trees for Zone 2/3

Howdy,
Just for clarification - most Nanking cherries are self sterile. There are a few that are self-fruitful. 'Orient' was selected and released by our neighbour to the south for self-fruitfulness. The Canadian Gene Repository in Harrow, Ontario still has this clone.
Now back to your case, NO, propagules from your own bush will not give you any pollination. You need a different bush. Nanking cherry propagates quite readily with semi-hard wood cuttings taken when the cherries are just changing color. So find a friend or neighbour who has a bush and take cuttings. Since you are in Zone 5, this may be around late June or early July.
Peace
Thean

 

Greetings all, we have started a community orchard in Louis Bull (Hobbema) Alberta south of Edmonton. I'v researched some of this stuff. You definitely need wild Prunus nigra (Canada Plum) or wild Prunus americana (American Plum) to get the hybrids to bear. I have found two sources, one is the anual plant sale at the University of Saskatchewan Horticultural experiment station. Their plant sales are usually in early June. This means a trip to Saskatoon or getting a friend to buy the plants for you and sending them to you. These plants are quite small and will take several years to get big enough to do you any good as a polliniper for your hybrid plums. The other source is the Little Tree Nursery in Saskatchewan. They will ship the plants to you by bus, but once again the plants are quite small, hence the name "The Little Tree Nursery. They are little trees.


another possible source for larger native plum trees is Boughen Nurseries out of Manitoba. They advertize their native plums as seedling plums rather than as wild plums. There is some risk in getting these. They may not be fully native plums. They could be simply seedlings taken from the seeds of native plum trees. If these are open pollinated trees and there are hybrid or Asian plums around, these seedlings may not be non hybrids. If there is even a trace of Asian heritage in a plum tree's genetic background, it will not be a good polinizer for hybrid plums. I should know this coming spring if the Boughen nursery plants actually do the trick. I have two trees that should be big enough to bloom this spring. I have lots of hybrid plums that bloomed this last spring but had no-compatible pollen donor. So if the Boughen nursery trees bloom this year, and we get plums we will know that these trees are truly wild plums.


Asian plums such as Brook Gold, Ptitson #3 & #5, Ivanofka, Fofonof and Green Elf can pollinate each other. You can also get hardy Asian plum seedlings at the U of S plant sale. These will vary in color, size and quality and will be good pollinizers for your Asian plums. A disadvantage of an Asian plum is that they bloom super early, and the flowers and young fruit tend to get killed by frost often. Something that helps is to plant them on a north facing slope with good protection to the north. Mine are on a north facing slope and bloomed at the same time as the Pembina plums which are on a south facing slope. Typically Asian plums bloom a couple of weeks earlier than Pembina which is one reason why they are a reliable pollinizer of the hybrid plums. Note, even though the Asian plums and the Pembina plums bloomed at the same time, I still only got 3 plums on the hybrids. I think we really do have to have the native plum. Thanks and God bless.

 

I am wondering how many years it will take before the tree flowing times synch up. This year my Pembina plum flowered about 5 days before the Toka. New trees but I was hoping it would flowering times would be the other way around. As for wild plums I have two from the U of S and are at the 30" level. This would be their second year. I made the mistake of buying very mature trees and then buying pollinators in plug form which will take many years before they are of use to store bought plums. If and when I get the wild plums to sucker and successfully transplant the suckers I'd be happy to help people out.

I also picked up 3 apricots from the U of S this year and all three are doing pretty well. They are growing quite a bit. My spider sense says these will not be small trees at all. So I will be looking for homes for two of them. As hybrids they will be genetically different from each other. I can't say how they will fruit but the plant body is growing just fine in a 3A micro climate against the garage. In fact the seedling apricots are out pacing both John and Thomas pears, and all of the plums. (Two thumbs up for LittleTree nursury. Great staff) Anyone who wants photos can message me.

Collin

 

Wow, it's hard to believe I found this tread again. Anyhow my previous garden adventure did not work as expected. None of the plants survived the winters. The valiant grape was the only survivor but never produced any good. The grapes never grew enough size. The winterss usually arrived too early.

I'm trying again in a different home.

My question is about a grafted plum I bought. The rootstock is pembina and the two added plants are brook gold and brook red. I also planted two nankin cherries and a western sandcherry.

Question: should I expect any plum based on this combination? If so, when?

 

I am by no means an expert, nor am I particularly well educated on this subject, but I live in Edmonton and have a few plums so I thought you might be interested in my experience. About 10 years ago I planted Pembina and Brookred plums, plus a Nanking cherry. My sandcherry died. About 5 years ago I planted a plum that appeared on my mother's farm in southern Alberta and which she believes is a wild plum (she herself has probably about 15 non-wild plum trees). The bottom line for me is I have had no plums ever on the Brookred plum but a decent amount on the Pembina. So far none on the wild plum but it is arguably young. It blossomed this year at about the same time as the other plums and the Nanking. If the Brookred did not shade my chicken coop I might try replacing it with something else.