Photo: Homer Edward Price, CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Chickasaw Plum

Prunus angustifolia

Also called sand plum, sandhill plum.

A thicket-forming wild plum that flowers white in late winter, before its leaves, and ripens tart red or yellow plums for jelly in early summer.

Showy flowersEdibleWildlife valueDrought tolerantBears youngStreet treeErosion control

Type: Small tree
Mature height: 4–20 ft
USDA zones: 5–9
Growth rate: Fast
Sun: Full, Part
Soil moisture: Dry, Average
Grows wild in: Sandy barrens, old fields and edges
Native range: 26 states and the District of Columbia, north to Nebraska, south to Florida and west to California
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Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia
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Chickasaw plum is a small, thorny wild plum that suckers into dense thickets, with narrow leaves folded along the midrib. Where it first grew wild is uncertain. Its original range probably lay west of the Mississippi, from Missouri and Kansas south to Texas and Louisiana, and Native peoples carried it east in prehistoric times. William Bartram, traveling the Southeast in the late 1700s, found it only in abandoned Native American fields, never wild in the forest. Its thickets shelter nesting bobwhites, brown thrashers and mockingbirds, and the caterpillars of the coral hairstreak and the red-spotted purple feed on its leaves. As a thicket it holds stream banks, gullies and blowing soil, and grown on one trunk it can serve as a street tree. Set it along a fence line or a sunny bank as a fruiting hedgerow for birds and jelly.

Size, growth and what to expect

Chickasaw plum grows fast, and our growth estimator gives it about two and three quarter feet a year while young. It makes a thicket or a small tree of 4 to 20 feet, with a crown as wide. The trees grow quickly but live a relatively short life.

Small white flowers open in clusters of two to four from February into April, before the leaves. The plums follow from May into August, about half an inch across, red or yellow and tart, best in jelly and preserves. Seedlings vary, and some bear edible fruit while others bear very bitter plums. Songbirds, wild turkeys, quail, deer and small mammals eat them.

It grows in thickets on sandy uplands and dunes, in open woods, pastures, fence rows and stream bottoms. Where it meets American plum the two cross, and the hybrid has a name of its own, Prunus × orthosepala.

How to grow Chickasaw Plum

Chickasaw plum wants full sun or light shade and a well-drained soil, sandy or clay, that stays average to dry. It does poorly in strongly alkaline ground. Pull stray root suckers promptly, or give the thicket room to spread. Set trees 15 feet apart, and keep each one 15 feet from a wall. It is small enough to stand within 15 feet of overhead wires.

Saplings ship bare-root or potted. Plant them dormant, from leaf fall until bud swell, in a hole wider than the roots and no deeper. Set the root flare at the soil line, put the native soil back in, and keep the mulch clear of the stems. Sow the pits in fall an inch deep under hardware cloth. For spring, hold them damp in the refrigerator for two to four months first.

Water weekly through the first summer, then only in a long drought. Keep grass and weeds pulled back for the first two years, which helps it survive and establish. Rabbits gnaw the bark and deer rub young stems, so guard each sapling with wire for its first two or three years. The crown often leans to one side, and an occasional pruning improves its shape.

Plums need pollen from a second plum to set fruit, and a thicket from one root counts as one tree, so plant two or more from different seed. Seedlings can bear in their second year. Plum curculio is the main pest of the fruit, and brown rot and bacterial leaf spot are its major diseases. Black knot, tent caterpillars and borers can also show up.

Heights and zones are typical ranges for the species in cultivation; local conditions and seed source shift them.

Sources (10)