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Decorative plum is a tree with unusual red foliage, interesting not only for its tasty fruits, but also for its attractive appearance. It is worth examining the description of the red-leaved plum with a photo and evaluating its merits.
Meet the decorative plum with red leaves
When choosing the first trees for their garden, most gardeners do not think about their appearance - delicious fruits play the main role. However, over time, there is a need for beauty - and then the decorative red-leaved plum comes to the rescue.
Ornamental plum leaves are not green, like most trees, but a deep red-purple color. Therefore, in the garden, the plant plays the role of a bright accent. If a decorative plum with red leaves is chosen high and spreading, then it stands out against the background of other trees, and if it is squat and undersized, it can border them or serve as a hedge.
What are the varieties of red-leaved plum
Plum with burgundy leaves is divided into many varieties, but it is customary to combine them into four large varieties:
- Russian.
- Spread out.
- Decorative purple-leaved.
- Plum Hollywood.
Line of hybrids "Russian plum"
Especially popular in the middle lane are varieties of the decorative Russian plum, obtained from crossing the southern cherry plum with the Ussuri or Chinese plum.
Scarlet Sails
The red-leaved plum of this variety is a tree up to 4 - 5 m in height, with a thinned but spreading crown, with large leaves of deep red color. The plum with red leaves and dark pink flowers bears fruit in mid-August. Scarlet sails have a dark crimson color and average weight - each fruit weighs about 25 g.
Among the advantages of Scarlet Sails are high resistance to negative temperatures and drought, low susceptibility to fungal diseases. The tree gives bountiful harvests and bears fruit every year, however, it belongs to the category of self-fertile. For Scarlet Sails, pollinators can be the Chinese plum varieties Skoroplodnaya and Krasny Ball, as well as the cherry plum Melnaya.
Llama
This decorative variety of Russian plum differs in its small size - 1.3 - 2 m. The crown is round-flat, dense, dark red leaves throughout the summer period. A plum with pink flowers produces large raspberry fruits, each of which can weigh up to 40 g.
Red-leaved Lama variety it was bred specifically for growing in the middle lane, therefore it calmly tolerates frosts up to -35 degrees. The shoots of the tree are not afraid of light spring frosts, the variety has increased resistance to pests and diseases.
The llama is a self-fertile ornamental plum, so pollinators are required for high annual yields. For this variety, Chinese plums and cherry plums with flowering in mid-May are well suited - for example, Vitba, Mara and Asaloda.
Early
Russian plum Rannaya is a large tree up to 7 m in height with a rounded crown, large red leaves with jagged edges and a brown underside of the leaf. It possesses equally good resistance to frost, disease and pests, brings abundant harvests from dark red fruits.
The tree, like most plum varieties, is self-fertile, therefore it requires pollinators, for which cherry plum and Chinese plums with early flowering are ideal.
Nigra
Another red-leaved decorative variety is Nigra, a short tree with an oval crown. Young leaves are ruby in color, adults are dark purple. The red-leaved plum blooms with pink flowers in late April or early May, even before foliage appears on the branches. In late August, it bears dark red round fruits.
It tolerates frosts below -30 degrees and summer drought well, does not break in the wind, rarely suffers from diseases typical of fruit trees. A pollinator for a variety can be Eurasia plum or home Hungarian.
Plum spread out
The spreading plum belongs to the category of red-leaved trees of high and medium growth with abundant and fast fruiting - the first harvests from it are harvested already 2 years after planting. Typically, the spreading plum varieties are designed to be grown in warm climates.
Hesei
A shrub variety of red-leaved plum called Hesei, it produces foliage of the usual green color at first - but then the leaves turn purple, with a pink or cream border around the edges. The variety blooms with white flowers at the end of April, before the foliage blooms or simultaneously with it. Bears sweet and sour small red fruits.
The variety is characterized by low frost resistance and tolerates negative temperatures only up to - 28 degrees. Of the diseases, black or perforated spotting remains dangerous for him. To obtain fruit, it is necessary to plant spread-out plums nearby with similar flowering times.
Pissardi
Iranian plum variety up to 6 m in height with dark purple leaves and red shoots. Pissardi is an ornamental plum with pink flowers that blooms in early spring before the foliage blooms. In August, it produces abundant pink fruits - provided that other varieties of spreading red-leaved plum were planted nearby for pollination with flowering at the end of April.
The frost resistance of the Pissardi variety is not very high - from - 20 to - 28 degrees. But the tree is highly resistant to disease.
Cisten
This ornamental variety was obtained by breeding the sand cherry and red-leaved Pissardi plum. The dwarf plant grows only up to 2 m, and at the same time it grows very slowly, so the Cisten plum is more often referred to as shrubs with a columnar crown. The leaves are elongated-rounded and toothed, dark purple on the underside and red-purple on top.
The red-leaved Cistena blooms in early spring with white flowers with a red core, and at the end of summer it bears fruit - dark purple small drupes. If you plant other varieties of low red-leaved plums nearby, Cistena will delight you with bountiful harvests.
The frost resistance of the variety is low, therefore it is not recommended to breed Cistena in cold regions. But the variety is quite resistant to diseases and pests.
Plum decorative purple-leaved: photo + description
To decorate the garden, a decorative purple-leaved plum is ideal - a shrub that reaches 1.5 in height, with elongated lanceolate leaves. At the very beginning, the foliage of the plum shrub has a dark red color, then, as it grows, it can turn to a dark brown hue. The decorative purple-leaved plum produces white or light pink flowers simultaneously with the appearance of foliage, and at the end of September it yields a harvest of dark red fruits.
It is best to plant plums in calm, sunny places, in well-drained, slightly alkaline or acidified soil. The bush has high winter hardiness.
Red-leaved plum variety "Hollywood"
One of the most popular red-leaved varieties is Hollywood. The plum tree reaches several meters in height, has a spreading sparse crown, which is formed by dark red shoots and red leaves. Blossoms Hollywood white flowers.Not only the appearance of the plant is attractive, which can be estimated from the photo of a plum with red leaves. The variety also bears fruit with purple-red tasty fruits in mid-August.
Hollywood enters the yield period 5 years after planting, gives juicy and sweet fruits. The best pollinators for the self-infertile variety will be the collective farm Renklod and the Mirnaya plum.
The nuances of growing decorative plums
Plum varieties with burgundy leaves can be quite different from each other - it is quite difficult to form uniform care rules for them. But general nuances still exist.
- Decorative plums do not like excessively waterlogged soil; it is better to plant them in soil with a neutral acidity level.
- Before planting in the seedling hole, it is necessary to apply organic fertilizers - humus and superphosphate, which will feed the plant in the first 3 years of life.
- After entering the season of productivity, red-leaved plums are regularly fed with mineral fertilizers and organic matter. In the spring, it is necessary to apply nitrogen fertilizers, in the summer - a solution of mullein and potassium. In autumn, the earth around trees and shrubs is dug up and also flavored with humus.
- Watering decorative plums is necessary as needed - the soil should not be allowed to dry out. Usually, once every 1 - 2 months with moderate precipitation, it brings 4 - 5 buckets of water under the roots.
An ornamental plum with red leaves necessarily requires pruning, which is carried out annually. Red-leaved trees, and in particular shrubs, tolerate cutting well; they give their crowns a rounded, sparse or vase-like shape.
Conclusion
Decorative plum with red leaves is an excellent decoration for any garden. It is mainly used as an element of the landscape, but with pollinators, red-leaved varieties will bring stable yields.
