Wild goose plum

Survives zone 5 through 9

Harvest calendar

Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.

One of the better-flavoured wild plums — thin-skinned, juicy, aromatic flesh often good enough for fresh eating, not just preserves. Reaches flowering and fruiting age within 3 years from seed, fast even by the standards of a genus known for quick fruiting. ⚠ Kernels/pits cyanogenic.

Hardiness

Zone 5–9

Habit

Tree

Edible part

Fruit

Ripens

Aug

Mature size

Fast-growing but short-lived, to 8 m (26 ft), sometimes to 9–12 m

Light

Full sun to part shade; fruits best in sun

Soil pH

6.0–7.5 (mildly acid to mildly alkaline) — some lime tolerated, but too much causes chlorosis

Environment

Temperate

Native range

Ohio, Illinois, Missouri and Kansas south to Mississippi and Texas; disjunct, possibly introduced populations in Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia and New Jersey.

Status

Wild

Years to fruit

3 yrs from seed

Growth speed

Fast, but short-lived compared to other Prunus

Spacing

450 cm (177 in) apart — about 20 m² (218 sq ft) per plant

Leaf shape

Alternate, lance-shaped to obovate, finely and sharply toothed, with a pair of small glands (extrafloral nectaries) on the leaf stalk near the blade — a Prunus signature worth learning, since it separates the genus from most look-alikes.

Root system

Shallow and strongly suckering, throwing root shoots that build a thicket over time — the natural habit of the American plums. Useful for stabilising a bank, a nuisance in a border, and the reason a single planted tree becomes a clump. Suckers are also the easiest way to propagate it.

Fruit description

Red-skinned, yellow-fleshed, about 2 cm, thin skin

Propagation

Seed (2–3 months cold stratification, up to 18 months to germinate), cuttings, or layering.

Pollination

Self-fertile, insect-pollinated.

The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.