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Eating plums

These are the best plums for eating fresh off the tree.

  • Avalon

    Avalon plum trees
    Avalon is a large mid-season red/purple plum, similar to Victoria, with a very good flavour.
    £60.50buy
    • Picking season: Mid
    • Self-fertility: Partially self-fertile
    • Flowering group: 2

  • Cambridge Gage

    Cambridge Gage plum trees
    Cambridge Gage is a reliable green gage, similar to Old Green Gage, with an excellent flavour.
    £60.50 - £63.50buy
    • Picking season: Late
    • Self-fertility: Partially self-fertile
    • Flowering group: 3
    • Awards: RHS AGM (current)

  • Coe's Golden Drop

    Coe's Golden Drop plum trees
    Coe's Golden Drop is a large oval gage from the 18th century, noted for its excellent flavour.
    • Picking season: Very late
    • Self-fertility: Not self-fertile
    • Flowering group: 2

  • Denniston's Superb

    Denniston's Superb plum trees
    Denniston's Superb is a gage-like green plum, raised in New York in the 19th century.
    £60.50buy
    • Picking season: Mid
    • Self-fertility: Self-fertile
    • Flowering group: 2

  • Early Transparent Gage

    Early Transparent Gage plum trees
    One of the easier gages to grow, Early Transparent has attractive semi-translucent fruit.
    £60.50buy
    • Picking season: Mid
    • Self-fertility: Self-fertile
    • Flowering group: 3

  • Edda

    Edda plum trees
    A good quality and cold-hardy early-season purple plum from Norway.
    • Picking season: Early
    • Self-fertility: Not self-fertile
    • Flowering group: 2

  • Excalibur

    Excalibur plum trees
    Excalibur is a red-purple plum, similar to Victoria but with a better flavour for eating fresh.
    • Picking season: Mid
    • Self-fertility: Not self-fertile
    • Flowering group: 2

  • Gordon Castle

    Gordon Castle plum trees
    A good dessert plum for northern areas due to its hardiness.
    • Picking season: Late
    • Self-fertility: Not self-fertile
    • Flowering group: 4

  • Guinevere

    Guinevere is a modern late-season dessert plum, with a good flavour.
    • Picking season: Late
    • Self-fertility: Self-fertile
    • Flowering group: 3

  • Haganta

    Haganta is a new large blue plum variety from Germany, one of the latest-ripening and an excellent flavour.
    £62.00buy
    • Picking season: Late
    • Self-fertility: Partially self-fertile
    • Flowering group: 3
    • Awards: RHS AGM (current)

  • Hauszwetsche German Prune

    Hauszwetsche German Prune plum trees
    Hauszwetsche is a damson-like Quetsche or Zwetsche plum, ideal for German-style cakes and desserts.
    £60.50buy
    • Picking season: Late
    • Self-fertility: Self-fertile
    • Flowering group: 4

  • Herman

    Herman plum trees
    Herman is one of the best quality early-season plum varieties, blue/purple with yellow flesh.
    £60.50 - £62.00buy
    • Picking season: Early
    • Self-fertility: Self-fertile
    • Flowering group: 2

  • Jefferson

    Jefferson plum trees
    Jefferson is a a large yellow gage / plum, easy to grow, crops well, very juicy and great flavour.
    • Picking season: Late
    • Self-fertility: Not self-fertile
    • Flowering group: 2
    • Awards: RHS AGM (current)

  • Jubilee

    Jubilee plum trees
    Jubilee is a new heavy-cropping dessert plum variety, similar to Victoria but larger and more reliable.
    £60.50 - £63.50buy
    • Picking season: Mid
    • Self-fertility: Self-fertile
    • Flowering group: 3

  • Kirke's Blue

    Kirke's Blue plum trees
    An old-fashioned blue plum with a rich sweet flavour.
    • Picking season: Mid
    • Self-fertility: Not self-fertile
    • Flowering group: 3

  • Lindsey Gage

    Lindsey Gage is a sweet-flavoured green gage, similar to Cambridge Gage.
    • Picking season: Late
    • Self-fertility: Partially self-fertile
    • Flowering group: 3

  • Malling ElizabethTM

    Malling Elizabeth plum trees
    This new plum variety was released to celebrate Queen Elizabeth's platinum jubilee.
    £62.50buy
    • Picking season: Early
    • Self-fertility: Partially self-fertile
    • Flowering group: 2

  • Marjorie's Seedling

    Marjorie's Seedling plum trees
    Marjorie's Seedling is an easy to grow, late-season, heavy cropping purple/black plum.
    £60.50 - £63.50buy
    • Picking season: Late
    • Self-fertility: Self-fertile
    • Flowering group: 3

  • Meritare

    An attractive new early-season dessert plum from Sweden, similar to Opal, with large fruits and good cold-hardiness.
    • Picking season: Early
    • Self-fertility: Not self-fertile
    • Flowering group: 3

  • Old Green Gage

    Old Green Gage plum trees
    The definitive gage - Old Green Gage is arguably the best-flavoured of any plum variety.
    £60.50 - £62.00buy
    • Picking season: Late
    • Self-fertility: Not self-fertile
    • Flowering group: 3

  • Opal

    Opal plum trees
    Opal is an early plum variety with a good flavour, self-fertile and very easy to grow.
    £60.50 - £63.50buy
    • Picking season: Early
    • Self-fertility: Self-fertile
    • Flowering group: 3
    • Awards: RHS AGM (current)

  • Oullins Golden Gage

    Oullins Golden Gage plum trees
    The flavour of a true gage yet also easy to grow, Oullins Golden Gage is a good first gage tree.
    £60.50 - £63.50buy
    • Picking season: Mid
    • Self-fertility: Self-fertile
    • Flowering group: 4
    • Awards: RHS AGM (current)

  • Queen's Crown

    Queen's Crown plum trees
    Queen's Crown is a dual-purpose red plum with a good sweet flavour.
    • Picking season: Late
    • Self-fertility: Not self-fertile
    • Flowering group: 3

  • Reine Claude de Bavay

    Reine Claude de Bavay plum trees
    The most widely-grown green gage, Reine Claude de Bavay has the distinctive gage-like flavour.
    • Picking season: Late
    • Self-fertility: Self-fertile
    • Flowering group: 3

  • Reine Claude Doree

    Reine Claude Doree plum trees
    A high-quality yellow-green gage, and usually more productive than other green gages.
    • Picking season: Late
    • Self-fertility: Not self-fertile
    • Flowering group: 3

  • Reine Claude Violette

    A traditional French gage first recorded in the 18th century, noted for its excellent flavour. Also known as Purple Gage.
    £60.50 - £62.00buy
    • Picking season: Late
    • Self-fertility: Not self-fertile
    • Flowering group: 3

  • Rivers' Early Prolific

    Rivers' Early Prolific plum trees
    Early Prolific is a very heavy-cropping early-season plum, raised by the famous Rivers nursery.
    £60.50buy
    • Picking season: Early
    • Self-fertility: Self-fertile
    • Flowering group: 2

  • Seneca

    Seneca plum trees
    Seneca is a high-quality late-season large American plum with a notably sweet flavour.
    • Picking season: Late
    • Self-fertility: Not self-fertile
    • Flowering group: 3

  • Stella's Star

    A modern green-gage, more productive and easier to grow in the UK than the traditional ones.
    £62.00 - £63.50buy
    • Picking season: Mid
    • Self-fertility: Self-fertile
    • Flowering group: 3

  • Thames Cross

    Thames Cross plum trees
    An attractive yellow mid-season plum with a good flavour.
    • Picking season: Mid
    • Self-fertility: Partially self-fertile
    • Flowering group: 3

  • Toptaste Kulinaria®

    A new blue dessert plum with sweet yellow flesh, and good disease resistance.
    £62.00buy
    • Picking season: Mid
    • Self-fertility: Partially self-fertile
    • Flowering group: 3

  • Victoria

    Victoria plum trees
    Victoria is the definitive English plum, attractive fruit, good for eating, outstanding flavour for cooking.
    £60.50 - £63.50buyBest seller
    • Picking season: Mid
    • Self-fertility: Self-fertile
    • Flowering group: 3
    • Awards: RHS AGM (current)

  • Warwickshire Drooper

    Warwickshire Drooper plum trees
    Warwickshire Drooper is a good quality dual-purpose yellow plum, with heavy crops.
    • Picking season: Late
    • Self-fertility: Self-fertile
    • Flowering group: 2

  • Willingham

    A traditional English green gage, with a reputation for excellent flavour.
    £60.50buy
    • Picking season: Late
    • Self-fertility: Not self-fertile
    • Flowering group: 3

How to choose Eating plums

Eating plums, also known as dessert plums, offer some of the sweetest flavours possible in the temperate garden, rivaling the best of tropical fruits. We particularly rate Avalon, Oullins Gage, Cambridge Gage, Coe's Golden Drop, Old Green Gage, and Opal.

There are several things you can do, as the gardener, to enhance the flavours of these sweet fruits. Firstly, try to plant the tree in full sun - because it is sunlight that ripens the fruits and ensures the maximum sweetness. Secondly, thin the fruitlets in June. To be fair, thinning plum fruitlets is a tedious job, but it is well worth doing because most plum varieties set too many fruits, which leads to poorer fruit size and bland flavours. So if you think your tree has over-set, carefully prune off the developing fruitlets, and don't be surprised if you end up removing half of them or even more - the tree will reward you later on.

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