Did damsons grow in Katherine Mansfield's childhood garden in Wellington? It seems so, for they feature in her short stories.

HISTORY LESSONS

As a versatile English hedgerow and orchard species that was self-fertile and grew reliably from seed, and was therefore easily propagated without transporting suckers and scions by sea, it makes sense that damsons were favoured by New Zealand colonists.

In 1843, Christmas came early for pioneering European settlers pining for a taste of home. According to The National Library of New Zealand’s online archive Papers Past, the City of Sydney steamship unloaded currants, candied citrus, liquorice, muscatels – and a large consignment of damson jam – in Auckland that December. From the mid-1800s, damson jam – along with greengage, gooseberry and blackcurrant – was an import mainstay. But some enterprising colonists must have emigrated with suckers or stones too, for locally made damson preserves were being traded years before the trees started featuring on nursery lists.

New Zealand’s first commercially available damson trees came not from England but from Australia, as the temperate Tasmanian climate suited the cultivation of many European plants. In June of 1849, Auckland auctioneers Connell & Ridings listed Hobart-grown fuchsias, primroses, artichokes, grapevines and damson trees for sale.

A year later, John Edgerley of Eden Nursery in Epsom Road, Auckland, began advertising “a delicious assortment of fruit trees for winter planting”, including 35 varieties of apples, seven cherries and six plums: ‘Blue Imperative’, ‘Coe’s Golden Drop’, ‘Orlean’, ‘Greengage’, ‘Azure Native’ or ‘Blue Gage’, and ‘Damson’.

When the Otago Witness visited James Gebbie’s orchard nursery in 1870, it noted “a splendid lot” of apples, apricots, pears, plums, peaches and figs, some of which, including the damsons, were “overburdened” with fruit. With 20 years’ experience in the province, Mr Gebbie was by then convinced that the climate was “better than that of Britain for fruit”.

A NATIONAL TREASURE

Damsons now flourish in almost every corner of New Zealand, from Northland to eastern Southland; in coastal gardens at Kaiaua, Nelson and Coromandel; from Lake Taupo to the Kaiwaka River; in inland Canterbury and central Hawke’s Bay; across the thermal areas of Rotorua; and around Taranaki’s lush pastures. The hardy trees thrive on farms and lifestyle blocks, in pint-sized city plots and suburban backyards. They can cope with most soil types, including peat.

“We had a damson on my parents’ farm on the Hauraki Plains,” Adrienne Jones told me. “To pick the fruit, first we had to jump a drain to get to it, which was still easier than crawling through the native toi toi.”

Damsons are “a totally idiot-proof plum to grow,” according to Waikanae tiny orchard owner Nicola Collison, and Wellingtonian Anna Swindells says her damson weathers the capital’s notorious northerlies with no noticeable ill effects.

“They are also,” says Cathy Smith, “the only fruit trees that the pūkeko leave alone.”