Spotted Laurel
Aucuba japonica
Dry shade is where this one earns its place — less light than most shrubs will accept, and hardly any water once it is settled.
- Type
- Shrub · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Variegated with yellow · Green
- Flower color
- Red
- Sunlight
- Deep shade to partial shade — few shrubs tolerate as little light.
- Watering
- Minimal once established — it handles dry shade well.
- Feeding
- A light balanced feed in spring; established plants rarely need it.
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- April
- Pruning
- Prune to shape in spring; it will take a hard renovation if it has outgrown its place.
- Overwintering
- Fully hardy — green forms need no protection, though variegated ones are worth fleecing in severe frost.
- Mar–Apr Bud Break
- Apr–Apr Spring Growth
- Apr–Oct Flowering
- Oct–Dec Growing
- Jan–Mar Growing
- Plant spacing
- 6 ft 7 in
- In-row spacing
- 6 ft 7 in
- Between rows
- 8 ft 2 in
- Square-foot density
- Not suited to SFG
- Root system
- Woody and fibrous
- Working depth
- 12–24 in
- Can reach
- 3 ft down where the soil allows
- Spread
- 10–13 ft across, about 1.5–2× the width of the plant
- Shallowest pot
- 20 in of soil
A shallow woody framework with the fine feeding roots in the leaf litter above it. Those feeders are mostly under the outer half of the canopy rather than against the stem, which is where water and feed should go.
The habit is Spotted Laurel’s own; the figures are what that habit usually comes to at this size, not a measurement of this species. Roots follow the soil either way: a compacted pan, a high water table or heavy clay stops them well short of any of it, and deep open ground lets them go further.
- Scale insects Immobile brown or white bumps fixed to stems and leaf undersides, sucking sap and weakening growth. Wipe off with a damp cloth or dab with horticultural soap; watch for the sooty mold that follows.
- Leaf spot Leaf spot where conditions stay too wet
- Waterlogging Aucuba blackening, brought on by waterlogging or frost
Beneficial predators that hunt this plant's pests — grow their favourite flowers nearby to recruit them. companion plant
- Hoverfly SyrphidaeHunts Scale insects
Bee-mimicking flies whose legless larvae graze aphid colonies clean while the adults pollinate. A ribbon of shallow, nectar-rich flowers kept in bloom all season recruits wave after wave of them.
- Ladybird (lady beetle) CoccinellidaeHunts Scale insects
The gardener’s favorite ally: adults and their alligator-shaped larvae each eat thousands of aphids, plus scale, mealybugs, and other soft-bodied sap-suckers. Grow flat, open flowers for the adults and never spray a colony that ladybird larvae are already working.
Shrubs, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com