Canada Plum vs Gray Dogwood

Canada Plum is a cold-hardy wild plum native to North America with small red fruit. They ripen in mid to late summer, with bitter, astringent skin surrounding sweet, slightly acidic flesh that clings to the stone. While some enjoy eating the plums fresh, they are more commonly used for baking and preserves. It is considered a universal pollinizer for other plum varieties and is often used for grafting or as a rootstock.

White to pink flowers appear in spring, often before the leaves, providing an early source of nectar and pollen for native bees and other pollinators. Birds and other wildlife also feed on the fruit, adding to its ecological value. Canada Plum can grow as a small tree or large, multi-stemmed shrub. It is well suited to a variety of projects, including fruit orchards for cross-pollination, as well as pollinator plantings, naturalization, and restoration projects.

Gray dogwood is a thicket-forming, deciduous shrub with greenish-white blossoms in open, terminal clusters. Young twigs are red and the fruit pedicels remain conspicuously red into late fall and early winter.

Fruit itself is a white, 1/4 in. drupe that usually does not remain on the shrub for long.

Great for naturalizing wild areas, this shrub attracts birds and other wildlife.

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