Flowering Plums Announce Spring!

    • Last chance to spray peach and nectarine trees for peach leaf curl before the buds break open. Use copper sulfate wettable powder for the best results.
    • Broccoli, cabbage, lettuce and other cool season vegetable plants can be set out now for a spring crop.
    • Flowering dogwoods and tulip magnolias can be planted now during the dormant season from balled & burlapped specimens.
    • Asparagus will provide you with delicious, low-priced spears for years to come if you plant them now from dormant crowns.
    • Fragrant daphne is an early-blooming shrub that will delight you with its strongly scented blooms each spring. Plant it in well-drained soil.

Flowering Plum Trees

Some of the showiest flowering trees in the springtime are flowering plums. Their pink flowers, which are coming into bloom right now, are always a pleasant sign that spring is on the way.

These trees are widely planted throughout California. Their reddish purple foliage, which appears after the flowers are through, remains colored throughout the entire growing season. All varieties are deciduous, dropping their leaves in the fall.

Flowering plums are small trees, growing 20-25 feet tall. They are densely branched and should be thinned to remove crossing branches after they bloom. They should not, however, be “headed” or they will just become more thickly branched. “Thinning” cuts remove whole branches down to where they meet a larger branch; “heading” cuts remove the end of a branch, leaving a stub.

The Blireiana plum has beautiful, large, fragrant, double pink flowers that bloom over a long season. The tree grows to 25 feet tall and 20 feet wide with long, slender branches. The leaves start out reddish purple, turning to greenish bronze in summer. It is a choice ornamental tree for the lawn or patio, as it produces little or no fruit.

Krauter Vesuvius is the best known variety for its dark reddish purple leaves in the summer. It is known as the “purple leaf plum”. Its flowers are a lovely, light pink and are smaller than those of the Blireiana. It grows to about 20 feet tall and 15 feet wide with an upright branching habit. It produces a good crop of small fruits in summer which can be quite a mess around paved areas.

Crimson Pointeâ„¢ is the first and only columnar shaped, purple leafed, ornamental plum on the market. This deciduous tree has glossy bronze foliage, that turns a deep merlot-burgundy color in summer. It produces showy white flowers and dark purple fruit, and will eventually reach 20 feet tall and 5 feet wide. It is good for a side yard or other narrow area or can be planted in a single line to draw the view toward a focal point.

Flowering plums are tough trees that take hot dry weather and tolerate drought. They will grow in any type of soil, and prefer a sunny location. They are a good size for most yards, adding beauty as well as some shade to the landscape.

If you are looking for a small, ornamental, flowering tree the flowering plum may be the tree for you.

One Response to “Flowering Plums Announce Spring!”

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.