Spring surprise

There are a few volunteer shrubs and small trees growing at the back edge of my yard, right along where the barely-managed common ground strip starts. In the past I've removed bush honeysuckle from this area, spent time finding and cutting grape vines where they emerge from the soil, planted a few small trees on my own -- I've even mulched back here a few times. So I'm pretty familiar with what is growing in this "wild" strip.

There's a small tree that I've been watching for a few years. It's got interesting but not spectacular bark, and a nice branching structure, but I haven't been able to identify it. This year I got more of a clue, as it has bloomed for the first time ever (or at least the first time I ever noticed)!

***

At first the blooms looked like they would be pink or red, which was exciting:

But after opening they turned white:

I haven't yet identified the tree, but I think I can now with a little research. The blooms look very similar to the blooms on my plum tree:

Blooms from plum tree

I'm excited to see if this "new" tree will produce any fruit or berries -- I assume it will, since a seed got here somehow several years ago, and birds are the best seed-spreaders when fruit is involved.

Now I just need to do a little pruning on it to keep those branches from sticking out into the path back there.

Nice little tree, now with another attractive feature!

.