Prunus mume

Prunus mume, the Japanese flowering apricot, is one of the most beloved of all winter-flowering trees, opening almond-scented blossoms in the depths of winter, from soft white to deep pink, on bare branches while the rest of the garden sleeps. In China and Japan the mei or ume has been celebrated in poetry and painting for well over a thousand years as a symbol of resilience and the turning of the year.

Across the southern United States the flowers open in mid to late winter, sometimes as early as January, filling the cold air with a powerful sweet, honey-almond fragrance that carries far on a still day. Bees and the earliest pollinators find the blooms gratefully, at a moment when almost nothing else is open.

These seedlings come from the celebrated 'Peggy Clarke' and tend toward single flowers. Beyond the bloom, Prunus mume is a productive fruit tree: small, round, apricot-like fruits ripen yellow-green with a red blush in late spring and summer, tart and acidic, and made into preserves, pickles, and the famous Japanese umeboshi and ume wine.

The smoked, dried fruit is also wu mei, one of the oldest herbs of traditional Chinese medicine, recorded nearly two thousand years ago. Grow the tree as a small specimen for a courtyard, a lawn, or a mixed border, in full sun to part shade and fertile, well-drained soil, and prune right after flowering, since bloom comes on the previous year's wood. Site where the winter fragrance can be met near a path or a door.