I grow a Santa Rosa in my back yard. It always set fruit without another plum in the yard, however, I think I'll get another plum anyway to increase yields. If I may add a question on to this thread: what is the maximum distance to plant a pollinator plum? The reason I ask is because I'd like to plant my second plum in the front yard, which would put it about 50 feet away. There would be a fence of course, I dont' know how much that may discourage the honeybees from transferring the pollen from the front yard to the back yard (I know they can fly over, but are they likely to?) thanks in advance!

There's A Unique Crisp Green Plum That I Was Interesting In Adding To My Orchard. Called The Kelsey Plum. I Wanted To See If It Would Cross Polinate With The Burbank Plum. I Read That It Would Cross Polinate With Another Japanese Plum. Wanted To Get Other People's Opinions Before I Make My Next Move. Thanks

matt: There is no universal pollinator for apricot, cherry, and plum. Getting a shrub isn't necessary. Many of us are growing those stone fruit on a 6ft by 8ft spacing or smaller. Some of mine are 2ft by 8ft. So get other varieties with good fruit and learn how to grow them as a small tree mainly by summer pruning.

You need to find pure Japanese plums or pure American or Canadian plums as pollinators. Once they have been hybridized they become unreliable pollinators and nobody really knows for sure because many factors like temperature or lack of pollinators were present etc.... i know toka is a mix between a plumcot and a Native American or Canadian plum and it has definitely increased my plum pollination in my yard with plums that are well known to be stubborn pollinators. You don't really want to plant a native plum but perhaps graft a bunch of branches onto your trees as the fruit will be bad tasting. This all being said I am sure there is many varieties of hybrids that pollinate just fine but good luck finding reliable information on this because it doesn't exist. i have one pure bred Chinese plum called the ptitsen 5 it pollinates other trees very well and makes ok fruit to. I can bet the toka and ptitsen 5 combination of pollen with a few branches of native plums randomly grafted is why my trees produce now. getting your pollinators in line and established is much needed for growing plums .sometimes just one combination won't be enough. If you can plant 3-4 or graft