posted 8 years ago
Plums are pretty easy as long as you know their normal means of reproduction.
Plum seeds are pits, they are designed for an animal to eat the fruit, the pit passes through the animals gut and comes out the back end covered in fertilizer.
It then sits in the fertilizer until the conditions are just right for it to sprout. Usually the fruits are eaten in the late summer or early fall and sit until spring.
What this means to us, the planters of tree seeds is that we will need to scarify the plum seed (pit) coating to replicate the passing through the gut, then we will need to put it through a cold period to replicate overwintering, this is called stratification.
Once we have given the seed what it needs to be able to sprout and then plant it and water the soil or wait for the spring rains, the seed will sprout.
Fruit trees may or may not be true to type, meaning if we eat the fruit and grow the seed, the fruit from that seed may or may not taste like the fruit we got the seed from, this is due to cross pollination.
I love your idea for planting, just make sure you give your seeds every possible chance to grow as they would in nature.
Plums generally take seven years of growing before they will produce fruit. I have two that are two years old and they are currently in morning shade, afternoon and evening sun.
If I had them in full sun, they would grow larger, faster but they still would need the years to start producing fruits.
Redhawk