Tree of the Week: Purple Plum

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Good morning. Pieter Severynen, who brings us Tree of the Week, is under the weather this week. We wish him a speedy recovery. In the meantime, from the L.A. Land archives, one of Pieter’s greatest hits from last spring.

‘Did you know that the city of Los Angeles Department of Water and Power gives away trees? Visit Trees for a Green LA or call 1-800-GreenLA. At the various tree giveaways in the city, the Purple Leaf Plum is usually the first one to go. Most people fall in love with its deep, dark, purple foliage.

‘The tree is ‘Prunus cerasifera ‘Krauter Vesuvius’ -– ‘K.V.’ Purple-leaf plum. Carl Krauter of Bakersfield introduced this darkest of the purple-leafed plums in 1957, hence the name. This well-behaved, vase-shape to rounded, small tree, 15 to 20 feet high, 10 to 15 feet wide, loves full sun to part shade. Single pink flowers adorn the bare branches around February, at the end of its winter leafless period. It produces little to no fruit, takes dry conditions, and has few problems. Branches have a tendency to all emanate from one spot on the trunk, so prune the tree at an early age to make later maintenance easier. If you find it’s in-your-face leaf color too gaudy, try one of its more subtle cousins such as P.x blireiana (the ‘x’ means it is a hybrid) or

P.c.‘Thundercloud’.’

Thanks, Pieter. Get well soon.
Thoughts? Comments? E-mail story tips to peter.viles@latimes.com

Photo Credit: L.A. Times