Before I dive deep into another profile of plants that thumbed their noses at Winter Storm Uri’s freeze, let me emphasize that I don’t want you avoid replanting anything that didn’t fare very well. If you lost bottlebrush or Japanese blueberries and want to use them again, please do! This also applies to viburnum, oleanders and pineapple guava. Do not let what happened in February stop you from putting them in your landscape again. Remember, this was a “100-year” freeze! The last late freezes that were this deadly to horticulture in Houston were in 1989, 1954 and one sometime in the early 1900s. So, just eliminate that negative thinking.
Anyway, this week’s profile will make it a great replacement for anything, and the cherry laurel is just a versatile landscape plant in general. Besides its cold-weather tolerance, I love that it can be both a full-sun or a filtered-light plant, hence an all-around good buy for the landscape.
It can go by other names such as laurel cherry, Carolina cherry laurel, mock orange, Carolina cherry and even wild peach. The Latin name of the one I recommend for these parts is Prunus caroliniana.
The cherry laurel is a large evergreen shrub or small tree with dark glossy green leaves. It grows in deep, moist but well-drained bottomlands in southeast Texas. It is a fast-growing small tree, to 35 or 40 feet, that casts dense shade. With age, the bark becomes almost black. It grows in most conditions but does not like high temperatures or hot, dry locations; it can also get chlorotic in Blackland soils, which is found more towards Central Texas. But if you build the beds the way I recommend, deep and loamy, they’ll do quite well. Cherry laurel is frequently planted as an evergreen screen in East Texas, and that means it requires maintenance to keep it as a hedge. Frankly, I like them random looking, but when pruned consistently they can be a great shaped tree, just like any Japanese blueberries lost to Uri.
Here are three negatives to keep in mind. 1. Ironically, they can be lost to drought but not deep freezes.2. The leaves and fruit have a high concentration of hydrocyanic acid and are potentially poisonous. 3. If it gets really humid, and there’s not significant air circulation, they can get fungal diseases as easily as Ligustrum and red--tip photinias.
PHOTOS: Randy Lemmon