Marjorie’s Seedling produce large, juicy purplish-blue fruits that are good eaters, I love them because they have a slightly sharper flavour than most dessert plums. They come into their own as cooking plums. The best jam, tarts, crumbles, the list is endless….

A self-fertile hardy late cropper, Marjorie’s Seedling is a better choice for areas that suffer from spring frosts. Plums grow best in sunshine and like a heavier, moister soil than many other fruits but do not relegate it to some damp site with heavy soil. Protect the blossom in spring from frost, weed, mulch and spray with seaweed solution. In autumn remove all mummified fruit. Plums are susceptible to silver leaf disease so pruning should be done in late spring, summer and during dry weather. Once the head is formed only cut out dead or diseased wood. Being a prolific cropper, branches overladen with fruit might need propping up. The blossom is beneficial to bees and insects and fruit is loved by birds and other wildlife.

History: The European plum, Prunus domestica is thought to be a hybrid between P. cerasifera ,the Cherry plum, and P. spinosa, the Sloe. It came from Western Asia and the Causcaus. From Syria through Greece into Italy and hence via Rome to Britain and Northern Europe and then reintroduced again in the Crusades. Both Henry VII is said to have imported a ‘Perdrigon plum and there is a plum grown from a stone salvaged from the wreck of Henry VIII warship the Mary Rose.

Common name: Plum Marjorie’s Seedling
Latin name: Prunus domestica
Usage: Eater and Cooking
Fruiting: Late Season
Fertility: Self Fertile
Height at Maturity: 6m/20ft
Nutritional Value: Rich in magnesium, iron and Vitamin A