Toka plum

Toka is an incredibly tasty plum that is sometimes called the bubblegum plum – and I can attest that this fruit really does taste like candy. The fruit is purple-red on the outside with yellow, aromatic flesh.

Cold hardiness: Toka is cold hardy to at least zone 4 (for reference, see this map of Canada’s Plant Hardiness Zones – Guelph is zone 6a). Japanese/Asian plums generally flower earlier than European plums, and so there is a slight risk of a late hard frost damaging their flowers, but I believe Toka's fruits are worth the risk.

Pollination: Some sources say Toka are self-pollinating (like here, for example), but I have seen many discussions on Reddit where people report poor fruit set when it is all alone without a pollinator (which would be another Asian plum or native plum). It would be quite disappointing to have a lone Toka plum flowering profusely but not make any fruit, so my recommendation is to plant a Toka alongside another Asian plum (Shiro or Burbank are two that I sell, for example), or a native plum (Prunus nigra or Prunus americana).

Toka is a hybrid of a Japanese plum (Prunus salicina) and an American plum (Prunus americana) and is a great pollinator for both Japanese plums and native plums (but not European plums, which are only cross-pollinated with other European plums).

Rootstock: Myrobalan 29C.

References:

Tree fruit culture and varieties in North Dakota.

Japanese-American hybrid plums.

Image 1: Glority.

Image 2: Daniel Wachenheim.