AMERICAN PLUM Red Purple Fruit White Flower Shrub Tree 5 Seeds OTHER COMMON NAMES: August Plum / Wild Plum SCIENTIFIC NAME: Prunus Americana COLOR: White Flowers / Purplish Red Fruit PLANT SEEDS: Fall / Cold stratify / Indoors weeks before last frost / Outdoors after danger of frost BLOOM TIME: Spring (April - May) HARVEST: Aug - Sept HARDINESS ZONE: 3 - 8 PLANT HEIGHT: 10 - 15' PLANT SPACING: 10 - 15' LIGHT : Sun - Part Shade WATER : Average The American Plum is native to the US Canada. It is a beautiful showy landscape ornamental with delicious edible fruit. They can be grown as a large multi-branched shrub or as a small single-trunked tree. Blooming early in the spring before the leaves appear, American Plums are smothered with impossible numbers of fragrant white 1" flowers. They are considered to be of special value to honey other bees as well as butterflies. This Plum is also a larvae host for a wide variety of butterfly species. The delicious sweet sour 1" purplish red plums are ready for harvest beginning in August. The fruit is very showy ornamental, can be eaten raw (don't eat the seeds) or made into jams, jellies, wine. Birds a wide variety of wildlife love to eat this fruit too .In fall, the leaves turn a variety of lovely shades ranging from light yellow all the way to bright red. The shrubs are dense thicket forming which makes them an excellent windbreak, border, or living fence, as well as providing excellent cover for small mammals songbirds. Being very cold hardy sturdy plants, the American Plum is often uséd as rootstock for other plums such as the Domestic Plum. The leaves of the plant are browsed by deer, the branches can be thorny. Having a suckering root system, the American Plum is uséd for erosion control in general is perfect for riverbanks other areas that can become inundated with water because they can withstand several days of flooding.