Can anyone help me identify this tree?

missblonde

I'm after some help from you lovely green fingered people!

I'm trying to get my garden into a usable shape this year after it has gotten quite over grown since we moved in and it was quite unloved by the previous owners. Our house backs onto woodland so we are surrounded by lots of trees, several of which have spread into our garden. There are two trees right at the back of the garden which have lots of berries/fruits growing on them and I'd like to know what they are before we decide about chopping them down completely or just trimming them back.

One tree has berries/fruit which is red/pink colour and the other is yellow. They did both have white blossom in the spring.

Tree with yellow fruit/berries:



Yellow Fruit/Berries



Red Berries





The garden is fairly large, west facing but is in three tiers so the top half of the garden gets the sun most of the day and we're in the south east if that makes any difference!

My initial Google results suggest possibly a crab apple of some sort or possibly a Blackthorn tree? Does anyone have any ideas?

meg72

Sorry not sure but I think the yellow one may be a greengage.

Lotus-eater

They are some sort of plum.

They seem quite early, I presume you are south somewhere? Yes you are, just seen it lol

Maybe a cherry plum?

missblonde

Thanks - I'm trying to work out if they are edible before I let my hand-saw handy OH hack them to pieces!

I've not eaten either so far but I split one of the the red ones in half and they were a pink/orange colour and smelled like a plum so you could be onto something there. I'll do the same for the yellow ones to see if they are Greengages too.

annie123

The first one, if it goes a bit more yellow looks like a mirabelle plum, they in the park at the bottom of my garden, very tasty they are too but the heavy rain/winds took every bit of blossom off as it came out this year, so no plum pie for me

Lotus-eater

missblonde wrote: »

Thanks - I'm trying to work out if they are edible before I let my hand-saw handy OH hack them to pieces!

I've not eaten either so far but I split one of the the red ones in half and they were a pink/orange colour and smelled like a plum so you could be onto something there. I'll do the same for the yellow ones to see if they are Greengages too.

Oh they are definitely edible, don't go chopping them down till you are sure you want to be rid of them.

splodger_seedswapper

both are cherry plum - aka myrobalan - both edible (when ripe) - makes a nice wine

missblonde

Brilliant, I'll make sure he leaves them well alone until they have been sampled! I thought they were edible as they did smell really nice when I split one open but didn't want to try them just in case!

Thanks everyone