YES. I grow gulf blaze and gulf rose. Both are superb plums and with ruthless thinning will produce large crops of 2 to 2 1/2" plums. I would just grow rose left to be but it needs a pollinator. Both are sweet skin and pit, no classic bitter to the gorgeous dark red. Bag all fruits with lightest possible row cover 6x12" stapled to form a bag and then paper clipped on. This takes care of birds and insect pests. I have no problem at all over 15 years of plums with brown rot, some on peaches but bagging again keeps to one fruit at a time. You can spray plant guardian in a mixture of 1 cup molasses in 1 gal water to almost eliminate brown rot and most stays on the bag. Train your trees low in a spiral pattern 3 main scaffold branches and keep the interior clean. Check every 2 weeks and just nip off tiny shoots and you will not need to prune except as directed in spring after the very necessary dormant oil and other dormant sprays per your locale. You will be happy with these trees and the flavor is great.

Xena: I second Scott's motion, having tried 4 pluot trees in the 80's and early 90's. They bloom too early, are impossibly difficult to pollinate, crack open in the heat and humidity of the mid-Atlantic, and are highly subject to brown rot. They are also like candy for the oriental fruit moth. Japanese plums, such as those recommended by Scott, are a better bet, but even these are not an easy home run. They may require spraying against the oriental fruit moth, and fungicides against brown rot if they ripen late in the season. The earlier a plum ripens, the better the chance it will escape insect or fungal damage. Don Yellmn, Great Falls, VA

Avedon: If your interested in CAPACITY FOR WONDER, I have two clumps of it and would like to eliminate one. It would be about 5 to 6 fans. I just ask that you pay the postage for shipping and it won't ship till late August or early September. Registration Info:36",Tet,6",SEv,ML and that is very accurate as to how it performs here. With your zone, it may start earlier in the season for you. I just finished photos from early this afternoon and here is a pic of the one I would be eliminating. You might want to find out if any folks in your zone/region grow it and how it does. You can click on my name and send me an email via GW if your interested. Julia

Hi Ladies ~ Sorry I've not gotten back in here to answer your posts. We were getting ready for a mountain vacation, going away for a week, been home three weeks trying to get out of vacation mode and back into our normal routine. Now we are having to deal with the threat of Ernesto. We didn't have a drop of rain the whole time we were on vacation, so I lost a few potted things. Have had lots of rain ever since the day after we got home, so everything is really doing nicely now. Southernheart ~ Thank you for your kind words. I really enjoyed making the web page. The tune was just right for it. For many years we just sort of didn't do much of anything, then we got the bug and have transformed our little compound. Humble though it may be, there is no place like home. Georgeanne ~ Sorry about making that tune stick in your head all day. :-) It is even more lush around here with all the rain we've been getting and we're about to get a couple of days of lots of it from Ernesto. GGG ~ No, people don't ask us to have wedding pictures taken in our gardens or grotto. The grotto is our own special little wedding grotto from when DH and I had a sweet private ceremony renewing our love to each other. I reccommend it to everyone. It was a love and fun-filled wonderful experience. Missourilark ~ Don't be jealous. What you don't see are all the weeds, bare spots, 'junk' etc. We just used to have a big open yard. Love it so much more now that it is enclosed. The different gardens just evolved with time. We've lived here since the summer of 1973. Right now the sun is shining, it's hot and breezy. You wouldn't know that Ernesto is down south of us over Cuba heading in our direction with lots of rain and some wind. How much wind we have no idea yet. It was a hurricane, now it has winds down to 40, so it's just a tropical storm. I hope it fizzles out over Cuba and never regains it's strength back. Rains and winds are supposed to start tomorrow. I dread it, but there's nothing to do but wait and see and be prepared. We may or may not board up this time. I was supposed to work all week and now will probably lose two of those days to Ernesto. Dang! I work part-time so was looking forward to this full week. Anyway, I hope no one suffers severe damages from Ernesto and hope he heads back out to sea. FlowerLady