How do i propagate a Victoria plum?

hallo,

At least I think its a victoria --- enormous blue fruit and sweet as honey --- have to move house, how do i take a part of this tree with me and hope i can make it grow in a new place?

thanks, karaman

 

I think grafting is your only real option.

 

@karaman The fruit of Victoria is red not blue and I wouldn't describe them as enormous. You could take cuttings, but on it's own roots it would get big and could take a long time to fruit. So as Pete said grafting is the way to go, but you would need a suitable root stock. Overall it might be best to buy a Victoria plum on a suitable root stock (Pixy gives a tree about 8ft high) from a good nursery.

 

I think you can possibly get a local nursery to graft it for you, just a matter of finding one prepared to do that, as @NigelJ points out it may well not be Victoria so an unknown variety, unless you can track down the actual variety.

 

Have you looked at the description for the President plum, as that sounds like what you are describing....?

 

As I so often comment. Gardening is a favourable hobby, that opens up a brand new world to many. Many new branches of science suddenly become available. Without going into the pros and cons of budding and grafting. My advice is. Get a positive ID on your plum. Forget The DIY and once established in your new home. Source out a good fruit tree nursery and buy a specimen of your choice.

 

I like the idea of taking something from your old garden to your new garden.

I haven't done it but I've read (and agree with the comments) that grafting is the best option, it could also be an interesting project. That said I'm not sure it's the right time of year as from what I can see is rootstock trees seem to only be available over winter. With that in mind perhaps you could take several cuttings and try and get them established in pots with the intention of grafting them at a later date.

 

I demonstrated in my post Air layering a plum... that they are easy to propagate both by air layering and by taking cuttings.

If you air layer a fruiting branch then the resulting new tree will flower and even produce fruit the following year if the root system is healthy enough.

The drawback to the air layering and grafting processes are that they take a considerable amount of time to complete and they must be done when they are in or just beginning their active growth stage (usually around mid March to April in the UK).

So, your best bet is to propagate by taking cuttings now. That way, you will retain some plants which could be used as scion material for a future grafting project or continue to grow them on.

It also doesn't hurt to double-check whether the potential donor tree is a grafted tree or not. If so, then you could propagate rootstocks from sucker branches that grow below the graft union.

 

hallo everyone,
what a lovely surprise all these answers, gave me lot to think about --- i shall indeed look on this as an 'interesting project' and air-layer as well as take cuttings, what have i to lose?
however, an other question: when grafting, what do i graft it onto: i have a mirabelle plum, a conference pear, a brown turkey fig, a cherry and a medlar -- does it really matter?

cheers, karaman

 

I've grafted Apples, so knew that grafting is done when the trees are still dormant, but soon to burst into bud, that rootstock is only available around that time, and there's only a little leeway between leaving behind a tree you want to take scions from and grafting rootstock becoming available, by (if my memory is correct) cutting dormant scions, wrapping in the likes of clingfilm and placing in a fridge.

As for cuttings, I'm sure that when I checked on the best time for taking cuttings from my Cherry Plums, it was late Autumn/early winter, but I suppose 'not best time' doesn't
necessarily mean impossible, so I love to know if they can actually be propagated from cuttings whilst still in leaf (because I sometimes see Plums in summer I'd like cuttings from, but wont be back later in the year).

 

Umm, in a word - yes.

You graft plums onto plum trees, so it would be the mirabelle plum, from that selection.