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.

It looks like you have severe transplanting shock or freeze back, best to leave alone newly planted trees the first season, new growth coming out of trunk will be your new branches, perhaps you have a season or two set back. Cut dead branches off later in season or next year. Konrad

Scott, thank you for your advice on using the pressure sprayer vs. the hose end. I don't have a backpack type sprayer, just the carry around type. The reason I asked about using the two different types of sprayer is; I have a complete blockage of the brachial artery right before it separates in to the radial and ulnar arteries. This happened when I slipped on some ice and hade a compound dislocation of my right elbow. And I just happen to be right handed. I have had surgery to repair the pinched ulnar nerve, but the peripheral surgeon wonÂt touch the blockage unless that my hand would happen to lose much more blood flow. Luckily my arm built smaller vessels to get blood flow around the blockage, but I still donÂt have the normal amount of blood flow to my hand. Because of this my hand and forearm get tired much easier than before my injury. To boil all of it down, it is harder to use a pressure sprayer than it use to be. As I previous noted, the Imidan issue is moot, we have birds nesting is some of the trees now. I already have a big bag of the Surround so I will try to get it applied very thick, but I will have to wait until this rainy spell is over. There is no reason to spray the trees and have it washed off the next or even the same day. Plus some of the apples have not finished blooming. I just hope that I donÂt get too much Plum Curculio damage in the mean time. Bagging fruit sounds interesting, but it may be a little more labor intensive than I can handle. I will do a little bit of reading and research on the subject. Thanks to all, David

Actually they aren't the landscaping flowering plum trees. I think the landscape company that did this commercial area THOUGHT they were planting flowering plum. DH and I went back today and 'harvested' a grocery bag full of these plums. The tree that I had initially taken fruit from was picked bare! I believe that tree is an actual Cherry Plum Tree. Those plums were exactly as those in the link I posted above with very tart yellow flesh. The tree next to it had plums the size of apricots -- dark reddish purple on the outside and red/burgundy flesh. The taste of this particular plum was very sweet with a tart aftertaste. DH was grumpy until he started to eat them and then he really began to pick! Tomorrow is jam/jelly making day. After I taste the jam -- DH and I might 'adopt' those trees and fertilize/spray them each year. We had a peach tree on the side of the interstate for 3 years -- we kept it in really good condition and harvested bushels of peaches -- then some unsavory folks began to live under the overpass -- we left the tree to them. DL