Description
Plum cerasifera – Cherry Plum – Myrobalan – Purple Leafed Plum – Flowering Plum – This rounded, deciduous large shrub or small tree from Turkey, and the Caucasus region grows 30′ feet tall and wide. It produces ovate to obovate, dark green leaves, with a slight bronze tint, to 2 ½” long, with veins on their undersides are noticeably hairy. Appearing with or just before the leaves it bears solitary, but profuse, bowl shaped, white flowers, 1″ across. The flowers are followed by spherical, plum like, edible, red or yellow fruit, 1 1/4″ in diameter. Tolerant of dry conditions.
Grow in any moist but well drained, moderately fertile, humus enriched soil, deciduous species and cultivars in full sun, evergreens in full sun or partial shade. Trim deciduous hedges after flowering, evergreen in early or mid spring. Protect from strong wind. Feed with high nitrogen fertilizer. Few are drought tolerant.
Prone to caterpillars, borers, scale insects, aphids, crown gall, mushroom root rot, eriophyid mites, crown gall, dieback, lesions, fireblight, leaf curl, powdery mildew, mosaic spot viruses, ring spot viruses, and silverleaf disease.
Zones 5-9
