Hi -- I know some of the answers to your questions. American plum self-fertile -- seems to be. I had 2 and then cut down one after it got old and started to go - the other still seems to bear well. There are other plums around the yard, plus various wild Prunus species in the neighborhood, plus various oranmental plum and sandcherries in the neighborhood as well. 2) 5 x 5 foot size. Yeah, I don't see a real problem with it. My 2 American plum seedlings grew naturally to about 7 to 8 feet max, with probably a 6 to 8 foot spread. So, with a little pruning, probably not too much of a problem. 3) Partial shade -- definitely. My surviving one is in about 2/3rds shade now, as the trees around it have gotten larger, and it seems perfectly happy as an understory type tree. It still gets pretty good light because the two trees near it are a Kentucky Coffe and a Sycamore, and both don't start to branch until very high off the ground. 4) Taste -- Well, the fruits of my plum are quite tasty when fully ripe and slightly soft. They have a bit of astringency when not fully ripe. They make wonderful plum sauce, jelly, baked tarts, etc. I've never had the Chickasaw plum, so can't comment. I did plant a beach plum last year, but it's still only a foot tall.

Wizard, I've read many times that Satsuma needs a pollinator, specifically Santa Rosa. Also Beauty or Burgundy, don't remember which. As proof of this, this tree is more than 10 years old and every year is full of blossoms but produces at most one solitary plum. A few years ago I started grafting different plum varieties to this tree, and last year there were some flowers and the Satsuma managed a few extra plums. This year I'm hoping to jump start the process with some pollen from my apricot tree/dapple dandy flowers. Scott, there's a good point...how do I know if the pollen is viable. I've been wondering about that with other fruit trees also, as I try to hand pollinate some of them. Can you tell by the color of the pollen (white, yellow, brown??), or how can you judge their viability? Or the time of day(morning, noon, evening?). Is there a standard that I can go by... jc

In my zone if we can graft on chokecherry or anything that help on hardiness of the climate we will make a considarable step in the progress and this succes we badly need it because what is on the market is about all not made for in our place,fact is that the destruction of our trees by winter season breake the courage of many and teach to our children to keep away from it.This year was the worst winter season in 35 years and find something for our place is greatly necessary.I have made reaserch for what i say and the results of it are speaking.I bless every try or efforts that are made for even a drop to success in giving possibility to fruit trees to stay here alive adding lot of hapiness to many homes....

Western Washington's summers are nearly always quite dry, but this summer is unusually so. At SeaTac Airport, we are down about 2 inches from normal for the last 12 weeks And looking at the precipitation anomaly (difference from normal) over the past 90 days for WA state shows near normal precipitation over the Columbia Basin, but a dry western Washington, with the windward slopes of the Cascades being roughly 3-5 inches below normal. To get some historical perspective, here is the May to July precipitation for Washington State since 1930. This year was not a record low, but was one of the driest years during that period. Overall, there has not been much a long-term trend in early summer precipitation, but we have had a drier than normal spell the last few years. Cliff Mass Weather and Climate Blog - Friday August 31, 2018 - A Dry Summer http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2018-09-02T22:18:00-07:00&max-results=2&start=8&by-date=false