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Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
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Plant · P-402
Beach Plum
Prunus maritima
Beach Plum is a low, suckering shrub of Atlantic coastal dunes, its roots holding shifting sand together as it spreads into colonies. Where its native cool, foggy, salt-sprayed summers are matched, it produces a small sub-acid to sweet fruit eaten raw, cooked into preserves and jelly, or dried, and its flowers carry special value to native bees. Move it inland and away from that maritime summer and it tends to keep living, flowering and just never finish a crop - a slower disappointment than an outright failure, since it occupies the ground for years first.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 3–7
- Soil
- Sand · Loam
- Moisture
- Dry · Well-Drained · Moderate
Vertical layer
Shrub- Soil pH
- 5.8–7.7
- Plant type
- Perennial
- Mature height
- 4–8 ft
- Mature spread
- 4–8 ft
- Plant spacing
- 3–5 ft
- Root type
- Tap
- Spread pattern
- Root
Keep exploring
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American Black Currant
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American Elderberry
Sambucus canadensis
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American Hazelnut
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American Plum
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American Plum forms dense thorny thickets by suckering from its own roots, spreading itself into a hedge across most of temperate North…
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The deeper layer
Plan what comes next.
- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
- Locked ecological function
- Byproduct
- Locked ecological function
Behind the record
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