Grow Your Own Fresh Fruit Trees!
‘Methley’ plum has a mild, distinctive, sweet flavor especially good for fresh eating and canning. It’s a medium-size, juicy reddish-purple plum that grows sweet and mild in U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 5 to 9. Unlike many Japanese cultivars, ‘Methley’ is self-fruitful. Japanese plums fare better in warm climates than their European counterparts. Japanese plum trees produce the largest and juiciest plums of any type. They do best in full sun. This attractive tree is heavy bearing and vigorous. Plums grow in many soil types but do best in fertile, well-drained soil. ‘Methley’ also bares volumes of sweetly fragrant white flowers bloom in early spring!
Plum leaves are simple, oval to oblong and come to a point at the end. The leaf margins are scalloped. When it flowers in the early spring, a plum tree will be covered in blossoms, and in a good year approximately half of the flowers will be pollinated and become plums. Flowering starts eighty days of warmer weather after winter. The shoots have a terminal bud and the side buds solitary (not clustered), the flowers being grouped 1-5 together on short stems.
A plum is a stone fruit tree in the genus Prunus. The fruit has a groove running down one side, and a smooth stone. The seed adheres to the flesh on this plum. Careful, early training, annual pruning and shaping are required to insure healthy and productive trees. Prune to avoid formation of V-crotches. Once mature, trees will require little pruning.