About Plum Belle de Louvain
Although some plum trees are purely ornamental, most gardeners select plum trees with a plum harvest in mind. The plum ‘Belle de Louvain’ is especially attractive to those who cook and bake with plums. In fact, the plums are primarily known as cooking plums. Their flavor is sweet-sharp and perfect for pies, cakes or jams. In addition, the flesh of the plum Belle de Louvain is fairly dry, which means that it won’t soak a pastry with liquid. The fruits themselves are quite attractive, very large and a deep hazy purple. They are oval and look luscious, but they lack juice, making them unfit for eating off the tree.
How to Grow Belle de Louvain Plums
If your orchard is in shade, chilly or exposed to wind, you’ll want to consider growing a Belle de Louvain tree. This type of plum tree does well in locations where other fruit trees fail and produces reliably generous crops. Its flowers are frost resistant, and it doesn’t need much sun to produce fruit. After you start growing a Belle de Louvain tree, you’ll need to wait a few years before you can expect fruiting. Belle de Louvain plum trees take a little longer than other plums to mature and bear plums, but this works better in poor sites, giving the tree more time to establish itself. This plum is easier to grow than some fruit trees since the tree is self-fertile. That means that you don’t have to plant a second plum tree as a pollination partner. However, if you have a second plum tree of a different variety nearby, your Belle de Louvain plum trees may produce more fruit. The trees blossom in the middle of the plum season, so most other plum varieties will work. Belle de Louvain plum trees generally blossom in April and fruit in August or September. They are quite disease resistant and do not require special care.
