I don't know about Italian plums but damsons are basically for cooking only. I've never met anyone who would eat them raw. They make beautiful jam and, of course, damson gin.

I have tasted jam from Damson plums and was so impressed I made sure I planted a tree. It will probably bear this summer.

I manage some Damsons and tried cooking and sweetening some but didn't find them more flavorful than other plums- and they require more sugar to make palatable.

Prune plums are dryable because of their high sugar content- I believe Italian is in this class. Just because you find prunes boring doesn't mean you wouldn't find a fresh prune plum delighful with a wonderful blend of sweet and tart. Valor is very nice and should be productive in your area and Castleton is an ideal home orchard plum (spreading, semi-dwarf and remarkably productive of smallish plums). I wouldn't grow Mt Royal unless I was in a Z4.

I find gages to be very exciting, flavor-wise, but a little challenging to grow.

My italian prune plum, and several others around here, make superb jam or preserves. We also eat them fresh a lot, but don't have enough to dry.

I also like the trees: compact, vigorous, easy to manage and of a convenient size. I could wax ellyquent about the bark and leaves and blossoms too, but I'll stop now.

:-)M

I found this thread on a search and was hoping for some further input.

When we built our home 20 years ago, a local orchard grower ordered and helped us plant 30 fruit trees - we have had tremendous joy and generally good success from the entire venture although I now really need to take stock and replace several.

We had one plum tree that I always called an Italian prune plum - it made absolutely suberb pies and cobbers. I am not sure of the variety but I see one called Fellenberg - also is the damson you are referring to Stropshire Damson?

Can anyone recommend a source to order? We are in central Illinois, Zone 6a perhaps a 5b.

Not sure what got that tree but suddenly one year it was gone. The apples have all done very well and the tart pie cherry is fabulous - we lost the big sweet cherry and it would get that fruit rot just as the cherries were ready to pick everytime. The peaches got big and then were diseased and died out. There are still pears that are not very productive, but fun and I have a couple apricots I added about 8 years ago that are doing quite well.

But I'm looking for the plums!

Fellenberg is an old reliable but I bet you would be even happier with some of the newer breeds. I think any good prune plum has superb culinary value but to be honest I never tried Fellenberg, but it is certainly widely available. Doesn't Starks carry it? Miller used to, but in the past I've found them very unreliable with accuracy in their labeling of plums.

Fellenberg was my favorite prune plum for fresh eating last yr. I got it from Raintree. My only complaint is the length of time it took to start bearing. It took 9 yrs to get a decent crop while my Stanley started bearing the 4th yr. now in their 5th yr I have 5 or 6 other european plums which have fruit this yr.

Well, as I keep saying, we love our Italian prune plum -if that is what it is. I was given a start (sucker) by a friend well over twenty years ago and she didn't know it by any other particular name. So it could be anything. But it's a smallish, oval, purple-black-skinned golden-fleshed freestone, and if you want scions from it this winter I'll be able and happy to share. It should graft well- I grafted it to a Nanking cherry just for the experiment and it's still alive there, plus I have it elsewhere.

I did buy Valor scions this year and was disappointed that they didn't take. I'll try again next year.

Good luck,

M

Growing up in NorCal I ate fresh ripe Italian prune/plums right off the tree. Truly wonderful fruit with dense texture and sweet flavor. They taste nothing like a dried prune when they are fresh. If they would fruit here I would buy one in an instant.

Thank you all! I don't recall having to wait too long to have fruit. The guy that planted our trees died a few years ago but his son is running the orchard and he may know what variety his dad would have chosen. It was a winner for taste and culinary excellence. They were oval dark skin, freestone, pale green fruit. Whenever I would make a pie, I would halve them, remove the seeds and put them all in skin and all - it would start out this yucky grey color but as it baked that gorgeous red purple baked out of the skins and the pies were as good as any fruit pie I've ever had.

I don't know anything about grafting or scions but I am an avid gardener and can grow flowers and vegetables and berries and I'm sure I can can be trained. I really appreciate the responses - I will do some research and make a few calls. It is always overwhelming to see those long lists of european plums and try to figure out which one to bet on.

I know for sure it was european since I had just one tree and it self polinated fine.

Thank you all!

I grow Italion, Stanley, Valor, Victory, Castleton, Mt Royal, Long John, and Seneca, which are all classified as Italion type plums, I don't like Stanley at all and Long John is similar but much bigger and more beautiful (but much less reliable). Mt Royal has a bit of an aftertaste and not highest quality IME.

The others are similar as far as the quality of their flesh- when allowed to ripen to soft on the tree they are extremely sweet and flavorful with just enough juice. Fellenberg is supposed to closely resemble Italian which is often not very productive on sites I manage, especially my own. I've never seen it with a really heavy crop.

If you live in a cooler climate I strongly endorse Castleton which has small fruit (like Italion) but is the most reliable and heaviest cropper besides Stanley in my part of the country and it does develop that extremely high brix amber flesh that you can expect from high quality prune plums.

Harvestman - so to be sure I understand are you recommending Castleton for my Zone 6a/5b climate here for production and flavor? You don't recommend Stanley from a flavor standpoint right and Fellenberg is not as productive (plus takes a long time to bear)? When you say Long John is more beautiful is this the fruit or the tree - but not as reliable - doesn't bear as heavily?

I don't suppose I have eaten a damson since I was a kid but I liked them raw when they were ripe.

Robert

Fellenberg, I believe, is considered similar to Italian, but as I said, I never have grown it. It tends to be rated a moderate cropper. I consider Italian here less than a moderate bearer so I'm guessing Fellenberg would likely be same. There's a lot of tricks I use to accelerate bearing so I'm not sure if Fellenberg actually can't be speeded up significantly.

I consider Castleton a very flavorful prune plum but what makes it stand out is its reliability- it tends to set fruit in clusters almost like grapes. Some years other plums set little or no fruit but Castleton always seems to have a crop at all sites. It is also a natural semi-dwarf with a wonderful spreading branch habit.

My favorite prune plum is Valor because it is very big and has that rich super-sweet quality and it can ripen from the last week of August here until the first hard frost. That is an extremely long picking time even for a prune plum. The reason I recommend Castleton over Valor is because of its consistency at many sites I manage. The funny thing is that at some sites plums are generally much more reliable than other sites for reasons I've never been able to decipher.

That means that to really know what is best at your site you'd have to try several varieties and find out yourself but if you're just going to try one I think Castleton is your best bet. ACN carries it but you'd better order ASAP because the commercial growers are sucking it up.

For those of you living in the North, the University of Wisconsin at River Falls (zone 4a) has developed a plum, first available this year, which is now sold by Jungs Nursery under the name BlackIce. It is supposed to rival the California plums, but be more hardy. I planted one this spring, so will see how it does. By the way, deer love plum leaves, so be sure to protect them. Northwoodswis

Hman,

I'd always heard Fellenberg was the same as Italian. I Googled both terms together and came up with several sites using the terms interchangeably (The university of Georgia article linked below mentions Italian is a synonym for Fellenberg).

Maybe these sites are being sloppy with the terms. If so, do you know the difference between the two. I have an Early Italian, and thought it was the same as an Early Fellenberg.

Here is a link that might be useful: Plums

You may be right, I would trust your sources more than my memory. I could have easily transferred same type to almost same in my memory.

When I started growing fruit in the northeast I remember that Cornell tended more to recommend early Italian than Italian- I don't know why.

Seedsavers Fruit and Nut Inventory lists Fellemburg and Italian as separate varieties- not that they're the final authority.

Fellenberg is the most grown prune plum in Switzerland, it also is known as Italian, second would be Buehler.

Thank you for all information. I love to plant fruit tree and starts it now on.

northwoodswis4

How is your BlackIce doing, has it produced yet?

gengis

Supposedly, Damson makes the best Jam, they're little on the tart side, [better for jam] but when let on tree a little longer when ripe they're nice to eat fresh. What have you decided on.

I took some Damson to the fruit show last year when I was approached from some English people wanting a tree, [probalby none in Canada]..they said that Damson is the easiest to make Jam with, the only plum which you can cook whole and the pits float on top which you can just scoop up.

Does anyone have plum tree cuttings willing to sell or trade? I would be interested in Castleton, Fellenberg, Italian. I have fig tree cuttings i could trade. Thanks so much from a relatively new gardener.

I use my dansom plums for tarts. Pie crust on the bottom, thick layer of plums, plenty of sugar and lattice pie crust on top. I cook in a hot oven until crisp. I have extra small dansom plum trees (bushes) in Albuquerque, NM. I will share