Elaeagnus
Elaeagnus × ebbingei
The variegated forms want watching — plain green shoots will take the whole plant over if they are left alone.
- Type
- Shrub · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Silver and gray · Green
- Flower color
- White
- Sunlight
- Full sun
- Feeding
- Rose & flower
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- October
- Mar–Apr Bud Break
- Apr–Oct Spring Growth
- Oct–Dec Flowering
- Dec–Dec Growing
- Jan–Mar Growing
- Plant spacing
- 9 ft 10 in
- In-row spacing
- 9 ft 10 in
- Between rows
- 12 ft 4 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
- 15–20 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.
Nitrogen-fixing nodules on the roots let it grow in sand, salt wind and worn-out ground, which is why it is planted as a shelter belt. The same vigour makes some species invasive in North America, so check which one you have.
The habit is Elaeagnus’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.
- Coral spot Coral spot on dead wood
- Reversion — plain green shoots on variegated plants
- Suckers thrown up from the base
Shrubs, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com