Canada plum

Photo: Harriet L. Keeler — Public domain · source

Survives zone 2 through 9

Harvest calendar

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

Extremely cold-hardy, one of the toughest plums here. Fruit is small, thick-skinned and sour off the tree — a few hard frosts improve the flavour tremendously, so this is a plum worth leaving on the tree into late season. ⚠ Kernels/pits cyanogenic.

Hardiness

Zone 2–9

Habit

Tree

Edible part

Fruit

Ripens

Aug–Sept

Mature size

To 9 m (30 ft), thicket-forming, sends up shoots from the base

Light

Full sun to part shade; fruits best in sun

Soil pH

6.0–7.5 (mildly acid to mildly alkaline) — does well on limestone

Environment

Boreal to temperate

Native range

Eastern North America, well into Canada.

Status

Wild

Years to fruit

3–5 yrs

Growth speed

Medium

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

Thick red skin, yellow juicy flesh, 2.5–3 cm, sour until frosted

Propagation

Seed (2–3 months cold stratification, sow fresh), half-ripe cuttings in summer, softwood cuttings in spring, or spring layering.

Pollination

Hermaphrodite, 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.