Sunday, April 25, 2010

Flowering Food - the stone fruit

To improve on my last post's photographic failure, I've tried to capture some of the beauty of the stone fruit that have just burst into bloom in my garden including plum and cherry.

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A bee appreciates the Evans cherry tree - a sour / sweet, small cherry tree / bush. Despite the multiple and/ors, as far as my kids are concerned, the taste is nothing but good.

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Tulips from an old garden breaking through layers of dirt, landscaping cloth, and rock to bravely bloom every year.

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Many plum blossoms may mean many plums if we're lucky! Our Montreal plum, as hardy as it's name suggests, and self fertile, is capable of giving a generous crop though it doesn't always oblige.

There are a surprising number of quite hardy cherry, plum and chum (midway between) fruits that will crop in Ottawa. You will even find apricot for sale at the nursery but these are suseptible to late frosts which damage blossoms and limit fruit production. I've seen plumcots for sale as well. I'll let you guess what cross they are. Several people I know have had luck with the peach 'Reliance' so if you have a sheltered spot, you could give it a try.

If this inspires you to plant some stone fruit, don't forget to check if they need a pollinator. Trees grafted with several varieties can get around this problem along with providing you with variety in a small space.

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Gratuitous tulips picture.

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I give up, what's a plumcot

These are some of my favourite chums and other hardy stone fruit descriptions from Shallow Creek Nursery in Alberta.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I'm in Ottawa as well - near Ikea - The buds on my plum trees are just starting to swell, but no leaves or flowers yet.

Ottawa Gardener said...

I'm closer to the hill than you. Maybe all that hot air?