The Problem with Privit

Leon: Back in the olden days (1930-50) azaleas were the rage for all south Mississippi gardeners. The flowers were spectacular every spring and lasted for a month or longer. Large cities, such as Mobile, had Azalea Trail events that drew a lot of tourists. But the petal blight started and got worse every year. Plant pathology departments throughout the South got grant money for studies to find a cure for the disease. There is no cure—petal blight is here to stay. Now, we get a beautiful bloom for a few days. Then it rains, spores blow everywhere, and the flowers fall off. But we continue to plant azaleas, hoping the disease will go away, or maybe we will have a full month without rain. Lately I have been wondering why—the flowers are attractive for a few days and we are left with not-very-good shrubs that grow too fast and have hairy leaves.

Ed: Here we go again. Leon is making sweeping statements on a subject, with only a smattering of ignorance. Leon, I assume that your experience with azaleas is limited to the “Indica” azaleas, so prominent in our landscapes and represented by such old standby varieties as “Formosa” and “Pride of Mobile”. Are you aware of the hundreds of varieties of Indica azaleas and those derived from other species native to widely separated geographical and climatological areas? Maybe you should “google” azaleas. Having achieved your objective of starting a discussion, perhaps you could give us your ideas of what a good shrub should contribute to the landscape.

Leon: (I feel something nibbling at my bait–probably a sucker, so on with the show.) I believe a successful shrub should be tough enough to endure our periods of drought and occasional floods, highly resistant to diseases and insects to eliminate the need for spraying, evergreen (except for the occasional specimen whose flowering makes it worthwhile, such as the deciduous azaleas), competitive enough to resist the encroachment of larger-growing trees, but not so vigorous as to outgrow its assigned space.

Ed: You have described blight-resistant Indica azaleas. Expand your mind a bit. There are sources of information that offer evaluations of a wide range of shrubs, based on the combined experiences of professional landscape architects and contractors, nursery growers and retailers, educators, and knowledgeable amateur growers. Members of a subcommittee of the Metropolitan Area Horticultural Advisory Committee, sponsored by the LSU Cooperative Extension Service in New Orleans, expanded information in the bulletin entitled, Shrubs For Louisiana Landscapes, published as Coop Extension Publication 1638 (May, 1971) authored by Neil Odenwald and Thomas Pope, both retired but still active. These volunteers rated 350 plants for use as landscape shrubs, with a rating scale from one to five, with one being excellent and five undesirable. Plants were grouped according to ultimate size into those under three feet, three to six feet, and over six feet, and problems observed with individual plants were noted. This bulletin was typical of many published and printed before the Internet. It in now available in the form of “online catalog links” at the LSU Agricultural Center website, lsuagcenter.com. Contact your County Agent for this link and a list of other web links.

Leon: All right, I have done a bit of what might be called archeological research. This was not “fun research”. Several months ago I decided to sell my house and move into a retirement center. There is a big gap between “deciding’ and actually selling. I went through forty-five years of collected important papers, tax returns, fascinating memorabilia, and pure junk before hiring a cleaning crew to “spruce it up” for sale. I have been through a Depression, a war, and three hurricanes—clearing a house for sale is worse. But, I finally finished, put it on the market, and think it will sell soon.

Back to the subject. During my paper research I came across a copy of that rating. Revised Edition. Rating Shrubs for the New Orleans Area: Supplement to Shrubs for Louisiana Landscapes, dated September 12, 1979. It summed up the plants in various categories and found under Rating l (the best), four plants less than three feet in height, and ten over six feet. In Rating 2, there were four under three feet, twelve from three to six feet, and twenty-five over six feet. In Rating 3, there were sixteen under three feet, thirty-seven between three and six feet, and thirty-nine over six feet. Indica azaleas, by the way, were in the middle of the Rating 3 group, as were camellias. Ed likes to make fun of me, but this time I am right!

Ed: Dream on, Leon. Solidly in Rating l is Ligustrum japonica, the wax leaf ligustrum—would you replace your azaleas with ligustrum?

Leon: Absolutely no! Actually, there are three ligustrums in our area: wax-leaf (Ed’s L japonica), tree ligustrum, and what we call privit. Each of these is the worst in its own way. Wax-leaf grows rapidly and keeps on growing. You have to prune it regularly but pruning doesn’t seem to stop the growth. It grows into a messy jungle. This is the ligustrum that produces a lot of small flowers every spring and attracts every bee in the neighborhood. Then it sets fruit and the birds come—messing up the whole area. Tree ligustrum looks a lot like it but doesn’t really make a hedge, it grows straight up and produces berries in bunches.  Privit is an import from China—long ago. Back when I mowed lawns and pruned hedges for spending money I thought privit was pretty good. It has smaller leaves and doesn’t grow as fast as the wax-leaf, but without pruning it will become almost the size of a tree. Another problem with privit is that it has naturalized itself throughout the woods. Ed knows I am bringing up another topic that I don’t understand but I wonder why privit seeds germinate almost anywhere they are dropped (after “processing”) by birds. Birds eat wax-leaf berries and leave a mess everywhere but I seldom see seedlings of it.

Ed: Leon has a lot of “how comes” with no answers. Back to the subject. Some of our readers are fans of using native plants, thinking they must be adapted climate-wise. Unfortunately, some have very narrow requirements for soil, light, and perhaps other factors so that moving them from the wild can be a death sentence. Many are difficult to locate in the retail trade, and are rated low for that alone.

An article in Louisiana Nursery and Landscape magazine for summer, 2003, by Margie Jenkins, owner of Jenkins Farm and Nursery in Amite, entitled “My Favorite Native Plants” gives her evaluations on some rare items that Ms. Margie has learned from long experience and hard work to move from their native home and grow in forms where they can be transplanted into our landscapes with hope of success.

Leon: We have nearly run out of space and provided you with no answers about what shrubs to use. Honestly, it can’t be done. You should look at the information available and choose according to your needs.

Through both instinct and education LSU horticulture professors, Ed O’Rourke, Jr. and Leon Standifer have amassed an extraordinary bounty of gardening wisdom, much of it found in their book, Gardening in the Humid South (LSU Press, 2002).