Hollywood Plum Tree

For any garden being able to harvest fruit from an ornamental tree is a true bonus – beauty and utility all in one. That’s exactly why the Hollywood Plum is such a great tree. Spring brings a charming and vibrant display of pink blossoms that rival any flowering plum, and all summer you can enjoy the beautiful purple foliage as a garden feature. With a bumper crop of top-quality red plums from late June to early August, you get the value of home-grown fruit, and then fall brings a great display of burgundy leaves. A three-season winner, this is a tree for everyone, not just movie stars. While many plums are best growing in cooler zones, this one needs less than 400 chilling hours, so it’s a great choice for plum lovers in hot states. It produces a respectable crop all on its lonesome, although it does benefit from a suitable pollinator. If you haven’t grown your own fruit, you don’t know what you are missing. These beautiful plums have dark-red flesh, and an unbeatable sweet juiciness you will love. Eaten fresh, baked or preserved, nothing will got to waste with this star of American fruit trees.

Growing the Hollywood Plum Tree

Size and Appearance

The Hollywood Plum is a deciduous tree, typically growing to around 12 feet in height and spread, reaching that size within 10 years. Fast-growing, it will probably have its first crop of plums after just 2 or 3 years, so you won’t be waiting long. Within 5 years you will have big crops, and mature trees can produce a harvest approaching 100 pounds from just one tree. It is unusual for a fruit tree, because the blossoms, which appear on the bare branches in March or April, are as beautiful as most ornamental flowering plums or cherries. They are carried in dense clusters, charming single blossoms with 5 spreading petals, colored the most wonderful spring pink. Before falling they tend to turn to a bright, white-pink. Almost as soon as the petals fall, the leaves emerge, and these are oval, with a pointed tip and serrated edges, about 3 inches long. They are purple when young, turning copper-purple through summer, of great ornamental value, and then in fall exploding into powerful burgundies and dark purples. At first hidden among the leaves, you will soon see the plums growing and developing. Depending on where you are, the first will ripen between late June and early August. The plums are large, round to oval, with blood-red skin and flesh, and a stone that just falls away. They are sweet, juicy and delicious, perfect for eating fresh, slicing into fruit salads, baking into pies, muffins and cakes, and of course for making delicious jams and preserves.

This tree is partially self-fertile, so it will deliver you a respectable crop when grown alone. For the biggest harvest, though, it is best to plant another suitable plum tree. Blooming at a different time, European plums are not suitable. Choose instead a Japanese variety, such as Morris, Bruce, Burbank, or Methley. These will also give you bumper harvest when grown together. If you already have a purple-leaf plum in your garden as an ornamental, it might also act as a pollinator.

Using the Hollywood Plum Tree in Your Garden

With its attractive foliage and pink blooms, this is one fruit tree that can stand proud in an ornamental garden – no need for an orchard. Grow it on a lawn as a specimen, or at the back of a shrub bed.

Hardiness

The Hollywood Plum is hardy in zone 5, and because it needs only 400 chilling hours a year (time with temperatures below 45 degrees and above freezing), it can be grown right in zone 9 – a tree for everyone, everywhere, and ideal for plum lovers in hot states.

Sun Exposure and Soil Conditions

Grow the Hollywood Plum in full sun, both for leaf color and fruit ripening. It grows happily in any well-drained soil, including sandy places and alkaline soils. Plum trees are among the very easiest of fruit trees to grow, and very rewarding.

Maintenance and Pruning

Although some pest and disease issues are to be expected with fruit trees, the Hollywood Plum is generally free of any serious problems, especially when compared to peaches and most other fruit trees. Not much pruning is needed, but after harvesting your crop it is useful to trim back long side shoots (over 12 inches) to about 6 inches long. Nothing else is needed, except to remove some of the branches inside the tree if it gets too dense. Don’t over-prune, as this can affect both flowering and ripening. If you want really big plums, thin-out to just one per cluster when they are still small.

History and Origin of the Hollywood Plum Tree

There are several different species of plums, often similar in appearance to beginners. The European cherry plum, or myrobalan, Prunus cerasifera, is one that produces small, edible fruits, and it has a purple-leaf variety called Pissardii (or Atropurpurea). This is named after the French gardener who found it in the garden of the Shah of Persia (modern Iran) in the 1870s. In the 1880’s the famous fruit breeder Luther Burbank brought Japanese plum, Prunus salicina, to America, and used it in many of his hybrid plums. In 1936 L.L. Brooks of Modesto, California, released a plum tree they called Hollywood, which had been discovered locally in 1932. It is believed to be a cross between Prunus cerasifera ‘Pissardii’ and a variety of Prunus salicina called ‘Duarte’, which has red-fleshed fruits. This identification has not been fully confirmed, and some suggest it could be a re-naming of one of Luther Burbank’s purple-leaf plum varieties.

Buying the Hollywood Plum Tree at the Tree Center

The Hollywood Plum is the perfect choice if you want an ornamental that also gives you a delicious crop – or a fruit tree that is pretty to look at. Either way you will love it, and our growers have been careful to source the correct tree for us. Ideal for plum-lovers in hot regions, this is a great tree that is rarely available. Order now while we still have some – like Hollywood stars they won’t last long.