With my new moniker, "Professor" I thought I start a "theoretical thread", where I have not done all the work.
I live right at the IL-WI border, close to Lake Michigan. When I first started growing bonsai, my area was considered USDA zone 4b or 5a, now 40 years later, still living in the same house, my zone is 5b or 6a. My winters have gotten significantly more mild.
Back in the 1980's and 1990's I tried growing Ume, Prunus mume, with no success. If I wintered it healed into the ground (pot buried to the rim) late freezes would always kill of flower buds. Often freezes after leaf buds have begun opening would simply kill the young grafted or cutting grown plant. In the ground, they simply sprouted too early to survive my late season freezes.
In a pot, where I could winter it in my well house, protected from late freezes, I was forever "missing" the bloom, because it would start blooming in the well house and I would forget to check on it frequently enough that I would miss the opportunity to bring the plant upstairs and photograph it and enjoy it in bloom.
So sometime in the early 1990's I gave up on Ume as inappropriate for my climate. The theoretical part is now that my climate has warmed some, maybe Ume would do better for me now. But I have not tried again.
Key trait everyone loves about Ume is the flowering before leaves emerge. You usually has nearly a week from flowers beginning to open, to leaves beginning to open. So for us northerners there are a few "bloom before leaves" alternatives. With some of the alternatives, the period of only flowers being open is shorter, with leaves coming the third day or so after flowers open. But you still get the flowers with no leaves image.
Culinary apricot, Prunus armeniaca, blooms with white flowers before leaves, some culinary apricots are not quite zone 5 hardy, one needs to read their descriptions. Most commercial trees are grafted, but they do air layer reasonably well. There are other closely related Prunus species that are also called apricot, some are edible, grown for fruit, some for nut kernels, and some are ornamental. Prunus armeniaca, brigantina, mandshurica, & siberica, for a more complete list hit wikipedia or Ag Extension sites. Most have cultivars hardy in zone 5, & some in zone 4. Most of the species mentioned are white flowers, but some of the more ornamental varieties have cultivars with pink flowers.
Culinary plums, the main species is Prunus domestica, white flowers before leaves. Prunus domestica is the species the European prune plum is derived from. There are many varieties, with most of the variation in size and color of the fruit. There are hybrids with
P. salicina with
P. simonii and
P. cerasifera. All have nice flowers before leaves. The blackthorn of Europe is Prunus spinosa, and has nice small fruit that look in proportion on a bonsai. Consult Wikipedia for a long list of plum species. All can be used for bonsai.
Culinary peach. When driving past Michigan orchards in spring, the purple-pink peach blossoms on the leafless trees are quite beautiful. With peach, the leaves come quick after the flowers, but the flowers are gorgeous. Peach is a larger leaf, more coarse as bonsai, but quite beautiful. Not as many species involved in peach, they are primarily Prunus persica. Even the nectarine is 100% Prunus persica in origin. Fruit is too large for bonsai.
Chaenomeles - a number of the flowering quince cultivars will bloom with flowers before leaves. Often Chaenomeles have a long extended bloom season, and will have a flush of bloom in spring and a scattering through out the rest of the year, including autumn and winter. Many varieties, larger growing and very cold hardy types like 'Toyo Nishiki' and the 'Doubletake series'. Less cold hardy are the dwarfs like 'Chojubai', 'Kan Toyo' and 'Hime' types.
Amelanchier, or Serviceberry or a dozen other common names. Amelanchier bloom before leaves open, with a nice white airy blossom, and are under appreciated. Every county in 49 of 50 states has one or more species of Amelanchier native to that county. Some are incredibly winter hardy, zone 3 hardy. There is an Amelanchier that lives near you.
View attachment 412858
So this is my "short list" of Ume substitutes,
Anyone else have species suggestions for "Flowers while Leafless"? please add your comments.
Those are a
! No worry about zone.
