Cleyera Is An Improved Hedge Choice

As I assembled holiday arrangements today, I fondly remembered a hedging plant from my garden of many years ago, Red-Tip Photinia. In the early 1980’s, many southeastern gardens contained hedges of Photinia x fraseri, widely known as Red Tip after the reddish coloration of new growth. Red Tip fell victim to a fungal leaf spot that virtually wiped it out. Disease problems are exacerbated when large numbers of the same plants are located in a narrow area, called a monoculture.

Fortunately for us gardeners, a worthy replacement to Red Tip has surfaced in form of Cleyera, or Ternstoemia gymnanthera (tern-STROE-mee-uh jim-NANTH-er-uh). In some ways, Cleyera is better than Red Tip. It prefers neutral to acidic soil (no lime required). It is slow-growing with a mature height of 8-10 feet, which means it is low-maintenance. Consider it as a replacement for Leyland Cypress. It has a loose, open habit but it can be kept shorter and made denser by limited pinching or light pruning once per year. For faster growing specimens, look for the cultivar ‘Contherann.’

Cleyera prefers a bit of shade to prevent its leaves from scorching. In spring, Cleyera has small white flowers, followed by green berries that turn red in fall. Neither flowers nor berries will wow the observer. Instead, enjoy attractive glossy, bronzy-red new growth in spring, dark green summer leaves, and slightly bronzed fall leaves. While it will never be the star plant in the garden, it is an evergreen that makes a great privacy hedge choice for partly-sunny or partly-shady areas.

Cleyera is cold-hardy in zones 7-9. It tolerates a wide range of soil types. Avoid planting Cleyera in locations that are constantly wet.

Mid-summer leaves of Cleyera. Photo by Jim Robbins CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

New growth of Cleyera. Photo by Krzysztof Ziarnek, Kenraiz CC BY-SA 4.0

A mature specimen of Cleyera, Ternstroemia gymnathera ‘Le Ann’. Photo by Jim Robbins CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Indian Hawthorn for Hedges, Flowers, Berries

Indian Hawthorn is one of the most popular landscape shrubs around. This dense evergreen makes a great hedge or foundation plant. It is hardy in zones 7-10. It will tolerate almost any garden soil (clay, loam, sand) as long as it is mildly acidic and not bone dry or constantly wet. Summer flowers are pink or white, and are followed by attractive clusters of small, deep blue or purple fruits. Pollinators love the flowers and birds flock to the berries. 

Plants naturally form rounded mounds. Mature height is up to 6 feet, so place it where it will not need constant pruning to fit into a small space. A few cultivars are larger, and can gain heights to 12 feet. When pruned severely, shrubs look like piles of sticks for several weeks. Installation or transplanting should be done in fall or winter. Hawthorns struggle when moved in hot weather. Grow in full sun in cooler zones, partial shade in warmer areas. New growth is bronze-green and is subject to damage by late cold snaps.

If Indian Hawthorn (Rhaphiolepis indica, pronounced raf-ee-oh-LEP-iss IN-dih-kuh) is healthy, it is beautiful. Unfortunately, its popularity has led to major overplanting. Place too many of any single type of plant in an area (think city-size, not your yard), and diseases and insects move in and create havoc. (Remember the Red Tip Photinia rage of several decades ago? They were planted in every neighborhood. Then a fungal leaf spot moved in, spread like mad, and bye-bye Red Tip hedges.) The cultivars ‘Eleanor Tabor,’ and ‘Snow White,’ are more disease-resistant than some. Soaker hoses or drip irrigation are preferable to overhead watering, since they keep foliage dry to discourage leaf spots.

Because Indian Hawthorn is a sturdy shrub, it is planted near parking areas and in shopping center medians. Full sun, excess heat, and insufficient irrigation lead to weakened plants that eventually fall prone to several insects and diseases, resulting in defoliation. In home landscape situations, Indian Hawthorns are frequently eaten by deer.

A close view of the lovely flowers of Indian Hawthorn. Note the beginning of leaf spot disease, left side.

This healthy hedge of Indian Hawthorn lives in a parking lot island of a big box store in upstate South Carolina.

A sad-looking hedge showing leaf loss.