Countess cherry plum trees
£41.50 - £61.50Countess cherry plum trees for sale
Choose a size - pot-grown
All our pot-grown trees are grown for us to our specification by the Frank P Matthews nursery.
PG12-year bush-trained 12L pot-grown tree, St. Julien rootstock£61.50
Large tree
(3m-5m after 10 years)
Choose a size - bare-root
BR11-year bare-root tree,St. Julien rootstock£41.50
Large tree
(3m-5m after 10 years)
Need help?
Ask our fruit tree experts on 01759 392007 or fill in our contact form.
Tree specification
Photos of trees as supplied |
Tree sizes and forms
Next deliveries
Delivery from week commencing 16th February 2026 onwards.
Delivery charges
Delivery for a single tree starts at £9.95, it is calculated based on your postcode.
All about Countess cherry plum trees
Countess is a new dual-purpose cherry-plum. The fruits are large by cherry-plum standards, in fact similar to a good-sized plum. They have a rich and very sweet flavour - and a better eating quality than most mirabelles and cherry plums.
Like other cherry plums and mirabelles, Countess is also good for cooking and preserving.
This is a semi-freestone fruit - the flesh sticks to the stone but is easily removed.
The fruits ripen in early July in southern England - they ripen quite quickly, turning from orange to deep crimson within a few days. Pick them as soon as this starts to happen if you want to cook with them, or leave them for a few more days if you want to eat them fresh. It is difficult to judge the ripeness by touch alone as they remain quite firm even when fully ripe.
Growing and Training
Countess usually flowers profusely, and is partially self-fertile. Its flowering season is very early, typically late February or early March in the south of England. The blossom appears on bare-branches, just before the leaves come out, and is an impressive sight.
Countess produces lots of blossom and flowers over an extended period, so is a good pollinator for early-flowering cherry-plums, and related plum species such as pluots and Japanese plums.
History
Countess was developed in Ukraine. Some authorities classify this variety with the mirabelles (Prunus insititia) but it is actually a hybrid variety and its flowering and ripening periods make it closer to the cherry plum (Prunus cerasifera).
Countess characteristics
- Gardening skillAverage
- Self-fertilityPartially self-fertile
- Flowering group1
- Pollinating othersGood
- Climate suitabilityTemperate climatesWarm climates
- Picking seasonEarly
- CroppingGood
- Keeping (of fruit)1-3 days
- Food usesEating freshCulinaryDual purpose
- Country of originUkraine
- Period of origin1950 - 1999
- Fruit colourRed - dark
- Flesh colourGolden / Yellow
British-grown trees 
Unlike many garden centres and online retailers, the vast majority of our fruit trees are grown in the UK.
Find out more.
All our trees are certified under the Plant Healthy scheme, supervised by the Plant Health Alliance.
Other stakeholders include Defra and the RHS.
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Guaranteed fruit trees
When you buy your fruit tree from Orange Pippin Fruit Trees we guarantee it for the first season in your garden while it gets established. If it doesn't grow successfully, we'll either replace it the following season or offer a refund, subject to some conditions.
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More about cherry plum trees
Cherry plums are, as the name suggests, a half-way house between cherries and plums. They are mostly self-fertile, and easy to grow.
Cherry plums are generally classified in the species Prunus cerasifera but they inter-breed readily with other plum species and many are hybrids.
Like cherries they ripen very early in the summer, in June or early July. Also like cherries, and unlike plums, there is no need to thin cherry plums - the trees are generally productive but do not over-crop the way some plums tend to.
However in most other respects cherry plums are more like early-season Asian or Japanese plums. They have a similar rounded shape, and the flesh is usually dark red (but can also be yellow, like most European plums).
