ANYONE have experience growing green gage plums?

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gg123456 Brooklyn, NY Apr 15, 2006

If anyone has experience growing green gage plums and would be willing to share their tips (and pics!), I'd be most grateful-
I've heard the green gage is rather temperemental (its of French origin!)

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Farmerdill Augusta, GA(Zone 8a) Apr 16, 2006

It was one the standards when I was a kid, some 60 + years ago. Never thought of it as tempermental. It is one of the easiest and best of the European plums. In my old age, I prefer the Japanese plums.

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gg123456 Brooklyn, NY Apr 16, 2006

Thanks Farmerdill-

I have heard that although greengages are self-fertile, they benefit from a pollinator-
what is the best tasting european plum in your opinion that would be a suitable pollinator

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Farmerdill Augusta, GA(Zone 8a) Apr 16, 2006

they bear well alone, but a second European plum would not hurt. In my youth the only others grown were Stanley and Damson. Folks especially like Damson preserves, but they are not for fresh eating. Tried Yellow Egg, a few years ago, but did not find it very flavorful. Fellemburg gets good reviews but I have not tried it. Note that there are several cultivars of "Gage" plums and some variance among cultivars sold as Green Gage.

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Lucky_P Hopkinsville, KY(Zone 6b) Apr 17, 2006

I planted a Green Gage 12 years ago, and I'm still waiting for the first plum fruit. There's one branch that has bloomed, weakly, the past two years in a row, but no fruit. The tree is nice and healthy - just no fruit.
I'd heard folks say that they were slow to come into bearing, but worth the wait, but I'd never anticipated waiting THIS long. They better be good!

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gg123456 Brooklyn, NY Apr 17, 2006

Hey Lucky-
how many blossoms have you been getting the last few years?

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Lucky_P Hopkinsville, KY(Zone 6b) Apr 19, 2006

Not more than a dozen or two.
I happened to look at the tree this morning while I was out grafting pears and mulberries - saw a whopping TWO mostly spent blossoms on the GG.

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gooley Hawthorne, FL(Zone 8b) Apr 28, 2006

We had one in the backyard when I was a lad in Illinois, zone 5b maybe. Lone tree, apparently self-fertile, bought bareroot mail-order from Earl May in Iowa I think, maybe a 4-footer then. Started bearing after a year or two, very light crops some years; finally my parents cut it down when I was in college because...not sure. Something about the fruit falling early and attracting wasps, I think was the excuse; they were on a tree-killing jag because they'd planted too many trees too close together and the lawn was suffering and the trees crowding each other out as well.

Mark., hmm, this isn't very useful, is it?

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