Photo: James H. Miller, CC BY 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Flatwoods Plum

Prunus umbellata

Also called hog plum, black sloe, sloe plum.

A small, single-trunked southern plum that clouds over with white bloom before its leaves, then ripens tart to sweet purple plums for jelly and wildlife.

Showy flowersEdibleWildlife valueDrought tolerantBears young

Type: Small tree
Mature height: 12–20 ft
USDA zones: 4–10
Growth rate: Medium
Sun: Full, Part
Soil moisture: Dry, Average
Grows wild in: Sandy barrens, dry uplands, old fields and edges
Native range: 10 states, north to Tennessee, south to Florida and west to Texas
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Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas
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Flatwoods plum, or hog plum, is a small plum of the Southeast, from southern North Carolina to central Florida and west to southern Arkansas and east Texas. Where Chickasaw plum spreads into thickets, this one usually stands alone as a single small tree. In Texas it is the last native plum to flower. Some botanists now count the Allegheny plum of the mountains as the same species, while others keep the two apart. Grow it as a small flowering fruit tree for a sunny, sandy yard or the edge of a pine woods.

Size, growth and what to expect

Flatwoods plum grows 12 to 20 feet tall and as wide, with a round crown and drooping branches. It grows quickly while young and slows once it bears. It grows at a moderate pace, the medium class our growth estimator models at a foot and a half a year, and it may live 30 to 40 years on a good site.

Clusters of small white flowers open in March and April, before or with the leaves. The plums ripen in August and September, purple to nearly black and half an inch to an inch across, and they range from very tart to sweet. Songbirds and small mammals eat them, and the leaves feed eastern tiger swallowtail caterpillars.

It grows in sandy pine and oak woods, sandy barrens, old fields and roadsides. In east Texas it keeps to the Pineywoods, on fencerows and woodland edges.

How to grow Flatwoods Plum

Flatwoods plum grows best in full sun and takes part shade. It wants a well-drained soil, acid to slightly alkaline, and grows wild in sand and sandy loam. It does poorly in heavy black clay. In sandy soil it grows best with some watering and a little afternoon shade. Plant it 15 feet from a wall, and set trees 15 feet apart. 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 trunk. Sow the pits in fall an inch deep under hardware cloth. For spring, hold them damp in the refrigerator for several months first.

Water weekly through the first summer, then only in a long drought. Rabbits and voles gnaw young bark and deer browse the shoots, so guard each sapling with wire for its first two or three years. It branches low, so take off the lowest limbs if you want to walk beneath it, and thin small inner branches in winter to open the crown.

Plums need pollen from a second plum to set fruit, so plant two or more from different seed. Seedlings can bear from about their third year, but heavy crops come only every three or four years. No pest or disease is a major concern, though tent caterpillars sometimes feed on it, and it is susceptible to Verticillium wilt.

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

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