I
consider eating an Elephant Heart Plum to be one of the most profound joys
of the Summer. This is not an eating experience for the
fastidious. Elephant Heart Plums are large and juicy. The
fruit of the Elephant Heart Plum is often lumpy and still tinged with
green, even when dead ripe on the tree, but the center of the fruit is
dark purple red and delicious. The seeds explode inside the fruit
often enough that one should be careful giving whole fruit to small
children. Our Elephant Heart Plums ripen in July and last for quite
awhile on the tree, usually most of the month. The Elephant Heart
Plum trees bloom consistently in the third week through the end of
March. By this part of the season we typically get enough warm weather for the bees to
fly so we get significant production each year. Like the other
Japanese Plums, Satsuma and
Burgundy, the Elephant Heart Plum is a sweet variety. The Elephant
Heart Plum is a low chill variety requiring 500 hours of chill.
Trees produce reasonably well in coastal gardens.
High
resolution images of the
Royal Apricot are available.
