Plant · P-397

European Plum

Prunus domestica

European Plum is the standard orchard plum of Europe and western Asia, and the source of prunes, gages, damsons and bullaces. Its fruit ranges from very sweet to sharply acid and is eaten fresh, dried into prunes, or cooked; even the flowers are edible, and the seed yields an edible oil. It needs a real winter chill to break dormancy evenly - without it the bloom comes straggling and the crop thin - so it struggles through short, mild winters, where Japanese Plum crops just as well for far less cold. Left alone it suckers from shallow roots wherever they are cut or disturbed, which is free rootstock and scion wood if wanted, or a thicket to mow back if not.