How to Grow and Care for Prunus

Sweet cherry is a well-known species to fruit lovers worldwide. This stone fruit varies in flavor from sweet to tart, depending on the specific cultivar. Sweet cherry is also used for lumber and is a preferred wood type for furniture.

Black cherry (Prunus serotina) is a medium-sized, deciduous forest tree native to the Americas, but also naturalized in parts of Europe. It features inflorescence with small white blooms that become clusters of dark cherries, edible when pitted. Mature trees have gray-to-black, distinctly crackled bark. The glossy leaves are poisonous to livestock. It is a highly reproductive pioneer species with invasive potential.

Cherry laurel (Prunus laurocerasus) is an evergreen species of cherry, commonly cultivated as an ornamental plant. It is a shrub or a small tree with characteristic glossy, dark green leaves with a leathery texture. Leaves and seeds of cherry laurel contain toxic compounds, which can cause serious poisoning if ingested.

Cherry plum (Prunus cerasifera) is a deciduous small tree or shrub native to Southern Europe and Western Asia. It is one of the most common wild fruits of its native region, producing numerous rounded, yellow, red, or burgundy-colored sweet juicy fruit in summer and autumn. Cherry plum is also used as an ornamental tree and as rootstock for other Prunus species.

Prunus domestica is a small deciduous tree and the most common orchard plum in Europe and other regions of the world. It is a hybrid species that had most likely evolved from the wild Cherry plum, Prunus cerasifera. The fruit is elongated, fleshy, and usually sweet. Dried fruits of european plum are called prunes.