I recently found some wild plums growing on my land.  Woohoo!  Not only do they taste good, they have big thorns, and will make a welcome addition to the 1/4 mile living hedge I am creating.  So far, species include black locust, honey locust, osage orange, and hazelnut.  I'll be cold-stratifying a bunch of plum pits this winter and they will be added to the mix next spring.

We have a wild plum in our field and although its fruit is quite small, I was quite surprised at how good it tasted. I hadn't considered using its seeds as part of a living hedge - the place I need said hedge may be too shady for it - but having read this post, I will think about it and do a little research!  Thanks

Jay Angler wrote:We have a wild plum in our field and although its fruit is quite small, I was quite surprised at how good it tasted. I hadn't considered using its seeds as part of a living hedge - the place I need said hedge may be too shady for it - but having read this post, I will think about it and do a little research!  Thanks

The fruit is the same on mine.  It's very small, but the fruit is very good.  The skin isn't nearly as good, so I peel that off with my teeth and just eat the fruit inside.

The great thing is, even if you find out your area is too shady, you aren't out anything.  My trees are on one side of a narrow access road with big pines on the opposite side shading from the south.  They get pretty good sun in the summer, but the rest of the year, they are pretty heavily shaded much of the day.  I'll try to take a picture showing the layout.

Some people write that they plant fruit trees on the north side of a hill, so the tree flowers later in spring and has a better chance of avoiding frost damage on the fruit. I've a volunteer plum that came in my garden, Reine Claude, it tasted better than the store-bought plum i planted. Apparently the seed is very true to the parent. I've got some twenty growing this year ready to go in.