close-up pic

Purple-leaved plum. Very common where I live, many kinds. Arthur Lee Jacobson wrote an entire book about them in the 1990s.

Thanks for the tip. Although, I've been looking, and it doesn't seem to have the same characteristics that IâÂÂve found regarding the purple-leaved plum. Mostly the spring flowers and the fruit (it doesnâÂÂt produce any!). Also, it looks like they usually have rounded shape, which this definitely doesn't have. I donâÂÂt know if this is helpful at all, but it does send up new shoots from the roots. I had branches coming up from a root maybe 2 feet away. They grew from maybe 1ft early this spring, up to 6-7 feet as of today. Had another one coming up about 5ft away. ItâÂÂs not easy to see, but I did a lot of pruning of lower limbs last year to clean it up. It might be a variety of purple plum, IâÂÂm just not seeing a close match based on flowers, fruit, and leaves.

This post was edited by kenallgood on Sat, Jul 27, 13 at 23:44

bboy said a whole book has been written on the many kinds ...

it IS a purple plum.. period ...

and shape is defined by the owner pruning.. and nothing else ...

it a prunus.. subject to gummosis.. and black knot.. among a host of other things... including the fact that they are rather short lived trees...

yours is also suffering in too much shade.. trying to grow out and away.. from the larger tree nexst to it ...

play with it.. learn to prune.. have fun with it.. but in the back of your mind.. plant the seed of getting rid of it.. when you are done with it ..

see link on how to do that..

ken

Here is a link that might be useful: link

Ok, thanks for the info. Probably one that just isn't healthy enough to bloom or produce fruit. The soil is pretty dry there as well. Time to break out the chainsaw :)

oh crikey

its an ORNAMAENTAL PLUM.. it USUALLY does not provide fruit..

mine.. after 15 years did.. Once.. and died that winter ...

if you want to learn about fruit plums.. try the fruit forum .. and plant a fruit tree.. rather than an ornamental tree...

as an ornamental.. it should reliably bloom every spring...

ken

Well, it definitely wasn't real happy being in mostly shade. As of Saturday, with 3 cuts, it was gone! Thanks for the info.

Unless you treated the cambium layer with an effective stump-killer herbicide, or dug it out, it'll probably be back - vigorously, this spring.

Lucky_p got it right, it's not gone. Get the stump and as many roots as you can. You'd be surprised how much they can sprout.
I've got ten acres and I wouldn't have one on the place.
You did good.
Mike

I had a purple leaf plum years ago that was loaded with fruit every year, but I also had Chickasaw plums near it and I think they pollinated it. It could be that yours never had anything close by to pollinate it.

But as others have mentioned, mine got infected with black knot so bad that I eventually had to cut it down and burn it. My Chickasaw plums would get black knot too, but once that purple plum was gone I never had any more problems with it.