Choosing and Growing Plum Trees for Home Gardens

Why plums deserve a place in the garden

Few trees reward a British garden as generously as a plum. Given a sunny, sheltered spot and soil that does not sit wet through winter, a well-chosen tree will crop for twenty years or more, filling the kitchen with fruit that simply cannot be bought at that quality. Plums also fit small gardens well, especially on a dwarfing rootstock, and they are happy alongside apples, pears and the cider-making corner of the plot.

There is one catch, and it shapes every decision that follows: plums flower early, often in March or early April. A tree in a frost pocket can lose its entire crop in a single cold night, while the same variety on a gentle south-facing slope will crop reliably year after year. Choose the site first, the variety second.

Dessert plums for eating fresh

These are the varieties worth growing for flavour you will never find in a supermarket punnet, where fruit is picked firm for the journey.

• Opal — an early, self-fertile plum ripening from late July, with small, sweet, red-flushed fruit. Excellent for colder gardens and a good first plum.
• Avalon — large, round, red-skinned fruit with golden flesh, ripening in August. Partially self-fertile, so it crops better with a partner nearby.
• Victoria — the great British standby, self-fertile and astonishingly heavy-cropping from mid-August. Sweet and juicy when ripe, and equally good cooked.
• Denniston's Superb — a hardy, gage-like plum with greenish-yellow skin and rich, honeyed flesh. Superb in northern gardens and wetter western sites.
• Marjorie's Seedling — a late, self-fertile variety ripening into September and October, with large, blue-black fruit that hangs well on the tree.

Cooking plums, gages and damsons

Culinary plums are firmer, sharper and often more useful in a busy kitchen. Czar is the classic: self-fertile, tolerant of poorer sites, and reliably heavy with dark fruit in early August, ideal for pies, crumbles and bottling. Yellow Egg (sometimes sold as Pershore) is the great preserving plum of the Vale of Evesham, with firm yellow flesh that holds its shape in syrup.

Gages are the aristocrats of the family — sweeter, richer and slightly fussier, preferring a warm, sheltered wall or a good south-facing spot. Cambridge Gage is the most garden-worthy, with small green fruit of exceptional flavour, while Oullins Gage is larger, yellow and earlier. Old Green Gage is the finest of all to eat but a shy cropper and a poor pollinator, so give it neighbours.

Damsons deserve far more space than they get. Merryweather is the largest and most reliable, Shropshire and Farleigh are traditional and intensely flavoured. They are self-fertile, tolerant of cold and wind, and they make the finest jams, cheeses and gin in the orchard.

Pollination, rootstocks and planting

Many plums are partially or fully self-fertile, but almost all crop better with a compatible partner flowering at the same time. If you have room for two trees, plant an early variety such as Czar or Opal with a mid-season one like Victoria or Avalon. Triploid varieties, including Old Green Gage and Yellow Egg, cannot pollinate others, so they always need company.

Rootstock decides the size of the tree. Pixy keeps a plum to around 2.5–3 metres, ideal for a small garden or a large pot. St Julian A is the traditional choice, reaching 4–4.5 metres and needing a little more room. On heavy clay, plant on a slight mound or improve drainage generously, and keep the tree well away from the shade of larger trees.

Bare-root trees planted between November and March establish best, though container-grown stock can go in at almost any time if watered diligently. Stake for the first three or four years, mulch with well-rotted compost, and keep grass and weeds clear of the trunk.

Pruning, thinning and seasonal care

The golden rule with plums is to prune in summer, between June and August, and never between November and February. Winter pruning invites silver leaf and bacterial canker into the cuts. Established trees need little beyond the removal of dead, crossing or congested wood, plus a light tidy after cropping.

Thinning is the job most gardeners skip and most regret. In late June, when the fruitlets are the size of a pea, thin them to roughly 5–7 centimetres apart. The fruit left behind will be larger, the branches will not snap under the weight, and the tree is far less likely to slip into cropping only every other year. Watch for plum moth, aphids, wasps and brown rot as the fruit colours, and pick up fallen fruit promptly to break the cycle.

From glut to bottle: jams, gin and plum jerkum

A mature plum tree is a wonderful problem to have. Bottle halves in light syrup, cook them into jam with a little lemon juice, or freeze them halved and stoned for winter crumbles. Damsons and sharp plums make superb fruit gin and vodka — prick the fruit, cover with spirit and a little sugar, and leave for three months. In Worcestershire and Gloucestershire, fermented plum juice has long been made into plum jerkum, an old-fashioned orchard drink somewhere between wine and cider, and a fine use for a heavy crop of cookers.

Where plums sit beside apples and pears, the whole plot starts to feel like a proper small orchard — fruit for eating, fruit for preserving, and fruit for the press and the bottle. Choose carefully, plant in the right place, and a plum tree will quietly earn its keep for decades.