Plant · P-401

Mexican Plum

Prunus mexicana

Mexican Plum is unusual among wild plums for holding a single-trunked tree form instead of suckering into a thicket, which is why it is grown as a specimen and used as grafting stock rather than as a hedge. Fragrant white flowers open on bare wood from February to April, ahead of almost everything else, feeding early pollinators and hosting swallowtail and cecropia moth caterpillars, and the summer fruit is eaten fresh or cooked into preserves once you've tasted a seedling to check its quality varies tree to tree. Deer browse young stock hard, and the heavy autumn fruit drop is enough to litter paving, so it's best sited away from paths, patios and decks.