Plum trees (Prunus spp.) With pink or white blooms bring beauty and colour to yards and landscapes. Growing in U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 8 to 10 and also other areas throughout the world, plum trees often produce modest, berrylike fruits or drupes. Whether deciduous or evergreen, their leaf is typically green, purple, bronze or red. So that you can choose trees that match best with a structure and colour layout.
White Flowers
Ornamental plum tree varieties attract birds and other wildlife that sample the trees’ fragrant blooms and tasty fruits. White-bloom producing plum trees include “Pigeon,” “Chickasaw” and “Flatwoods.” “Pigeon” (Coccoloba diversifolia) plum grows up to 25 feet tall and 35 feet wide. It produces dark-green, oblong, leathery leaves that do not change colour in autumn in addition to white, showy blooms and small, round and fleshy, purple fruits. “Pigeon” plum provides a thick canopy for shade. “Chickasaw” (P. angustifolia) plum trees grow to 25 feet tall and broad with thorny branches on short trunks. Their deciduous green leaves do not change color in fall, however, their white flowers, which bloom through winter in warm climates, emit a fragrant scent. “Chickasaw” trees produce fruits that develop from 1/2 to 1 inch broad. “Flatwoods” (P. umbellata) plum trees sprout small, white flower clusters in spring and mud and sweet-to-tart purple fruits. “Flatwoods” trees are deciduous, and their green leaves turn yellow in fall.
Pink and Pink-White Flowers
Pink and pink-white flowers blossom on a few plum tree cultivars with variously colored leaves. As an instance, “Thundercloud” (P. cerasifera) — or “Cherry Plum,” as it is commonly called — sprouts ruby leaves that chant to reddish-purple. Its pinkish-white flowers bloom in spring and are followed with edible purple fruits, each about 1 inch wide. Its foliage turns purple in fall. “Pissard” (P. cerasifera atropurpurea) plum trees have pink and white flowers that bloom in spring. Their leaves are bright red at first, darken to purple through mid-summer and flip green-bronze by the season’s ending. “Pissard” trees produce miniature purple fruits, and also their fall colour is purple. “Krauter Vesuvius” (P. cerasifera), together with its pink blossoms, has the darkest foliage of flowering plum trees purplish-black. It might make fruits but only sporadically.
Dwarf and Semi-Dwarf
Dwarf flowering plum trees grow 8 to 10 feet tall, and semi-dwarf varieties reach a few feet taller. As an instance, “Dwarf Natal Plum” (Carissa macrocarpa) is a evergreen ground-cover plant that grows only 12 to 18 inches high but spreads from 4 to 8 ft broad. It’s small, green, leathery leaves on forked spines. Its white, star-shaped flowers bloom in spring, and its own red fruits are utilized to make jellies and preserves. Dwarf “Red-Leaf” plum (P. x cistena) grows from 6 to 10 feet tall and 6 feet to 8 ft wide. Its bright, reddish-purple new leaves turn coppery-purple since they mature. The tree produces single white flowers and small, purple-black fruitsand vegetables. Semi-dwarf flowering cultivars include “Purple Pony,” which grows up to 12 feet tall and produces deep-purple leaves and solitary, pale-pink blossoms, and “Big Cis,” which reaches up to 14 feet tall and has big, purple leaves, solitary white flowers and small, purple-black fruits.
Fruiting
Many flowering plum tree cultivars make fruits of various colors, textures, flavors and sizes. American cultivars such as “Wild Plum” and “Goose Plum” (P. americana), with short trunks and thorny branches, develop up to 25 feet tall and 20 feet wide. Their small, white blooms and reddish-yellow fruits attract birds and other wildlife. People enjoy Americana cultivars for tangy plums eaten fresh or in preserves. The “Mexican” (P. mexicana) number of plum trees grow to approximately 30 feet tall and spread up to 25 feet broad. They form canopies of greenish-yellow leaves that are fuzzy on one side and shiny on the other side. Their white blossoms bloom in spring and are followed with purple-red drupe fruitsand vegetables. Mainly tart-sweet tasting, their fruits are eaten fresh or processed into jellies and preserves. Deciduous leaves on “Mexican” plum trees turn bright orange in fall.