| Weight | N/A |
|---|---|
| Dimensions | N/A |
| Botanical Name | Prunus spinosa |
| Zone | 3-9 |
| Chill Hours | 800 |
| Soil | Adaptable to most well drained soil types, increase yield and vigor with organic compost, deep mulching over root area |
| Light | Full sun/dappled shade |
| Pollination | Self-fertile, additional plantings increase yields, but this bush can self seed additional plants on its own |
| Years to Bear | 3-5 years |
| Form | Deciduous fruiting bush that can be trained to tree form with stiff upright arching branches which can grow into a massive spreading almost thicket-like plant. Prune to maintain desired shape and air flow. |
| Height | 15-25 feet |
| Spread | 10-30 feet |
| Spacing | 10-20 feet |
| Bloom | White blooms in early spring just before leaf bud break |
| Ripening Time | August-September |
| Fruit | Small round blue/black fruit sharply tart and sweet when fresh, make the best tasting jam ever! |
| Pollinator Friendly | Yes |
Sloe Plum (“Lara’s Little Plum”)
$10.00
These might be our favorite plums ever for jam. The flavor is out of this world.
These plums come from a massively prolific bush plum we discovered when collecting horse manure for the nursery in Marcola, Oregon. While we haven’t genetically ‘proven’ it, we’re betting it’s a sloe plum (Prunus umbellata) – deep blue, with hundreds of fruits covering the branches from top to tip.
The plums are quite tart eaten fresh even when fully ripe but make the most incredible plum jam we have ever tasted. In fact, we horde this jam, hiding it in the back of the cupboard where others won’t find it! Simply divine.
These seedlings were all planted in fall 2020 and are still quite small, but based on the growth of the mother plant, they should have no problem getting up to 15 feet tall and spreading out into a full-on hedge row of plum bush if you let them.
While we wouldn’t call the raw fruit bitter once it is ripe, it does ripen very late and is still very tart when fully ripe. But the other descriptions of sloe plum fit this plant to a T:
“Sloe plum is a dwarf growing mountainous shrub found throughout Europe. It still is widely used for jellies, syrups, conserves, olives and flavoring for gin and herbal teas. Eaten fresh, the fruit is very bitter but once cooked or processed the flavor emerges as something completely different much like a tart plum. Sloe plum has dense branching with lots of fruit spurs all along the stems. It spreads by rhizomes ever so slowly working its way out from the first plant. Once the main plants begin to fade in fruit production, the sprouts take its place. Because of its susceptibility to black knot we had to develop a black knot clonal selection. This plant is best in exposed open areas with full sun and a dry like location. ”
We have not had the opportunity to investigate for rhizome growth under the mother plant but we do observe that it is three or four times as wide as it is tall and seems to have many young shoots coming up in the perimeter areas of the plant. We had assumed these were from fallen plums sprouting in the soil below, but certainly rhizomes are possible.
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