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| Hi:
Today picked up a Candy Rosa Plum Tree at Lowe's in Hopkinsville, KY. Wanted another Japanese Plum for pollination & better yield, but the other other one they had was Santa Rosa (it's my understanding Candy Rosa is a derivative of Santa Rosa somehow, and I've yet to find a reference indicating S.R. is a workable pollinator for C.R.). A bit later, with sprinkling & some dark clouds overhead, I stood in Wal-mart's parking long eying their plum trees. They had a few with a big rectangular tag marked Plum Purple on the front, with a photo of dark purple oval plums, and on the back, label is Prunus domestica and give height, sun needs, etc... BUUUUUT, on that little plastic tie that's got the bar code & what not, I see some are marked Methley Plum and one Burbank Plum, which are both cultivars of Japanese Plum, Prunus salicina. The leaves look much the same between my two new trees to my untrained eye. Would anyone care to hazard a guess as to the true identify of the tree (I know there's no way to know for sure)? Or which of the identification documents on the tree is most apt to be right? I thought maybe some of you might see the same thing in your area (I'm in southwestern KY) and be able to tell (a long shot, but figured I'd try). Richard. P.S.: The documentation on the tree simply indicates Wal-mart, not a nursery I could contact to ask. |
Follow-Up Postings:
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- Posted by ken_adrian z5 (My Page) on Sat, Mar 17, 12 at 17:32
| Would anyone care to hazard a guess as to the true identify of the tree ===>>> would give you straight odds.. that it is.. wait for it. ... a plum.. [and i still might lose the bet] good luck with the rest.. lol .. ken ps: wouldnt be surprised.. if you found a third tag down inside the pot ... have you looked there yet ... |
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| Based on past experience with this sort of thing, I would say that most likely, the bar coded tag with the specific variety is probably correct. The generic "plum" tag is probably what someone used when they ran out of the correct specific picture tag. But, only time will really tell. The mass market hort industry isn't very high profit margin, so they don't really give a hoot about trivial details such as correctly tagging the plants, or taking care of them once they hit the stores (go figure, you would think they would make more profit by NOT letting them all die en mass due to neglect once they hit the Wal-Mart or Home Depot). |
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| Perhaps the stores don't have to pay for the stock until it's run across a register. |
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| Today I received 2 good-sized Methley Dwarf Plum Trees (1 3-gallon, 1 5-gallon) from a local nursery. Doing a little online follow-up, I ran across the Nature Hills nursery page on plum trees. I like their site as one of those I browse. So imagine my surprise to see Methley Plum named as Prunus domestica. Santa Rosa is noted as Prunus 'Santa Rosa' without mention of the salicina portion of the scientific name, that would reveal it specifically as a Japanese plum. Richard. |
Here is a link that might be useful: Nature Hills Plum Tree Page
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| Most of the big boxes DON'T pay the vendors unless it sells, that's my understanding of it, it's called "pay by scan" -- basically, the stuff is on consignment. That shifts the risk of loss from the big box to the grower, but the grower is still taking a loss when things croak. I know at Lowe's, there are people there wearing vests marked "vendor" that are supposedly taking care of the plants, although it seems like they still are awfully neglected in terms of not being watered and of being left to rot for days stacked on carts in relative darkness. |
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| Rich, A friend of mine once bought a tree labeled 'Santa Rosa' at WalMart or one of the other big box stores - and it turned out to be a Fuyu-type non-astringent Asian persimmon. So...ken might lose that bet, after all. |
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