There are few plants in the garden that put on a holiday show like Photinia serratifolia ‘Green Giant’. I’ve admired this since I was a young horticulture student at NC State, where the west wall of the horticulture building housed some ancient specimens. This member of the rose family hails from China, Japan, Taiwan, and a few other adjacent countries. It’s hard to imagine a better evergreen screening plant if you have the space for it’s mature 45′ tall x 30′ wide size. Our garden specimen is now 12 years young. This is a Mike Dirr named selection from a particularly dense, more upright plant growing on the University of Georgia campus. Despite the amazing fruit show, we’ve never seen a garden seedling. I’ve not tried these for holiday arrangements, but I’m betting they’d be great. Hardiness is Zone 6a-10b.
Photinia serratifolia ‘Green Giant’
Photinia serratifolia ‘Green Giant’
We’re in need of a fast growing screening plant! The area gets about 4-6 hours of morning sun, then shade for a few hours then filtered sun. In winter is gets sun and filtered sun. Would this plant work for us?
This sounds perfect for such a site if you have the space. A smaller choice would be Illicium floridanum.
Are these resistant to Entomosporium fungal leaf spot (plaguing redtip photinias and Indian hawthorns)?
Thats another great attribute to this species is it seems completely unaffected by any of the leaf spots.
A really beautiful Southern heirloom plant that should be more widely used. It’s fast growing and can be trained as a knockout evergreen specimen tree. And very tough – witnessed over a dozen specimens that had been established for 4 years go completely under raging – polluted – water for nearly five days in Houston during Hurricane Harvey and all came through with no visible damage.
~ An amazing hot pink and cream variegated variety, named ‘Pink Crispy’, has been popular in Europe for years but, as far as I know, has yet to be put into production in the USA.
They are purportedly immune to it. I’ve never seen it appear on this species, even after drastic flooding.