If you’re like us, you never have enough purple-foliage plants in your landscape, so we’re always on the lookout for something new. One of our finds a few years back is this purple-leaf plum from our friend Dr. Dave Creech in Texas. Prunus ‘Purple Pride’, which Dave and his staff at Stephen F. Austin State University discovered, is a seedling of the widespread native, Chickasaw plum, Prunus angustifolia, with an unknown suitor.
Many purple-leaf trees loose their color during the summer, but not Prunus ‘Purple Pride’. Our specimen at JLBG, pictured below is 4 years old. We have also not seen any sign of diseases, which often plague many domesticated prunus. This should top out around 12′ in height and 15′ in width. Supposedly, our tree will fruit eventually, and reportedly, the fruit are rather tasty. Hardiness is Zone 7a and warmer.
Do you think you’ll ever be able to share (sell) this new purple-leaf plum? Would it need to be grafted, or do you think it might come true from seed? I’d be very interested to know how the fruit is when it starts producing. Sadly, I lost my purple-leaf plum last year to black knot disease. It never greened out in summer, kept that reddish-purple leaf color all season, and I loved the fragrant palest pink blossoms in spring. Hope your new tree continues to do well for you.
We do our best to stay away from most woody plants in the nursery, since it would be far too easy for us to get carried away. You should be able to search for, and find a mail order source on-line.