Merryweather Damson

A damson with unusually large fruit, self-fertile and hardy enough for exposed northern sites. Damsons are cooking fruit — sharp raw, excellent preserved — and this is the one most often planted as a garden tree rather than a hedge.

A cultivar of Plum. Everything on this page is about the cultivar; how to grow the species is on the plant page, and how big the tree gets is on the rootstock page.

Pollination

What this cultivar needs before it will set a crop.

Self-fertility: Self-fertile
source
Sourced guidancehigh confidence
Royal Horticultural Society: Plum pollination
Checked 2026-08-13
Partner: No partner needed
source
Sourced guidancehigh confidence
Royal Horticultural Society: Plum pollination
Checked 2026-08-13
Flowering group: 4 on the plum scale
source
Sourced guidancemoderate confidence
Royal Horticultural Society: Plum pollination groups
Checked 2026-08-13
Ploidy: diploid
source
Horticultural consensusmoderate confidence
NIAB — National Institute of Agricultural Botany: Cultivar ploidy records
Checked 2026-08-13
Partners needed: none

Partners for Merryweather Damson, from the 11 plum cultivars GrowingHQ holds

Computed by the pollination engine from the flowering groups, ploidy and recorded pairings on each record — not a hand-written list. The scope is exactly what the heading says: these are the answers that exist in this catalogue, not the answers that exist.

No partner is required

Merryweather Damson sets a crop on its own pollen. The table below is still computed, because a compatible neighbour does no harm and a grower planting two trees may want to know which pairs work.

Cultivar	Verdict	Why
Blue Tit	compatible	Both flower at overlapping times (groups 3 and 4) and both produce viable pollen.
Cambridge Gage	compatible	Both flower at overlapping times (groups 4 and 4) and both produce viable pollen.
Czar	compatible	Both flower at overlapping times (groups 3 and 4) and both produce viable pollen.
Jubilee	compatible	Both flower at overlapping times (groups 3 and 4) and both produce viable pollen.
Marjorie's Seedling	compatible	Both flower at overlapping times (groups 5 and 4) and both produce viable pollen.
Opal	compatible	Both flower at overlapping times (groups 3 and 4) and both produce viable pollen.
Oullins Gage	compatible	Both flower at overlapping times (groups 4 and 4) and both produce viable pollen.
Pershore	compatible	Both flower at overlapping times (groups 3 and 4) and both produce viable pollen.
Victoria	compatible	Both flower at overlapping times (groups 3 and 4) and both produce viable pollen.

1 further cultivar returns no verdict, because a flowering group or an incompatibility group is not recorded on one side. The engine reports that rather than assuming a value: Shropshire Prune.

The fruit

Season: Late
source
Sourced guidancehigh confidence
Royal Horticultural Society: Plum cultivars — season
Checked 2026-08-13
Use: Cooking, Preserving
source
Sourced guidancehigh confidence
Royal Horticultural Society: Plum cultivars — use
Checked 2026-08-13
Keeping: Eat within days
source
Sourced guidancehigh confidence
Royal Horticultural Society: Plum cultivars — storage
Checked 2026-08-13

The plant

Vigour: Average vigour
source
Sourced guidancehigh confidence
Royal Horticultural Society: Plum cultivars — vigour
Checked 2026-08-13
Habit: Upright
source
Horticultural consensusmoderate confidence
Royal Horticultural Society: Plum cultivars — habit
Checked 2026-08-13
Cropping: Crops regularly
source
Sourced guidancehigh confidence
Royal Horticultural Society: Plum cultivars — cropping
Checked 2026-08-13
Frost risk at flowering: low
source
Sourced guidancemoderate confidence
Royal Horticultural Society: Damson cultivars
Checked 2026-08-13

On each rootstock

The size of the tree comes from the rootstock. What the cultivar contributes is a direction, in words — GrowingHQ does not multiply the range by a vigour factor, because no source supports the multiplier and the resulting number would look far more precise than the inputs are.

Rootstock	Height	With this cultivar
Pixy	250–300 cm source Sourced guidancehigh confidence Royal Horticultural Society: Plum rootstocks Checked 2026-08-13	Merryweather Damson is of average vigour, so the rootstock's range applies as published.
St Julien A	350–450 cm source Sourced guidancehigh confidence Royal Horticultural Society: Plum rootstocks Checked 2026-08-13	Merryweather Damson is of average vigour, so the rootstock's range applies as published.

Full profiles for each of these are on the rootstock page.

Cultivar record reviewed 2026-08-13.