Creek plum

Photo: Amirza360 — CC BY-SA 3.0 · source

Survives zone 7 through 9

Harvest calendar

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

A southern-range wild plum of excellent flavour, unlike some of its more marginal desert relatives — one large seed per fruit, good raw or cooked. ⚠ Kernels/pits cyanogenic.

Hardiness

Zone 7–9

Habit

Shrub

Edible part

Fruit

Ripens

Aug

Mature size

To 2.5 m (8 ft)

Light

Full sun; cannot grow in shade

Soil pH

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

Environment

Temperate to subtropical

Native range

Southern Kansas and southeastern Colorado south through Oklahoma to south-central Texas.

Status

Wild

Years to fruit

3–4 yrs

Growth speed

Medium

Spacing

400 cm (157 in) apart — about 16 m² (172 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

About 15 mm, one large seed, excellent flavour

Propagation

Seed (2–3 months cold stratification, up to 18 months to germinate — protect from mice), half-ripe cuttings with a heel in July–August, softwood cuttings, or spring layering.

Pollination

Hermaphrodite, 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.