Euonymus japonicus
Euonymus japonicus
Clips two or three times a year into a dense hedge, and does it in shade where most hedging thins out.
- Type
- Shrub · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Green
- Sunlight
- Sun or shade — few hedging plants do as well on a shady site.
- Watering
- Moderate, and drought-tolerant once established.
- Feeding
- Feed hedges in spring, and again at midsummer if you like.
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- June
- Pruning
- Clip two or three times a year; it takes a hard renovation cut if the hedge gets away from you.
- Mar–Jun Spring Growth
- Jun–Oct Flowering
- Oct–Dec Growing
- Dec–Dec Leaf Fall
- Jan–Mar Leaf Fall
- Plant spacing
- 15.7 in
- In-row spacing
- 15.7 in
- Between rows
- 15.7 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
- 7.5–10 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 Euonymus japonicus’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.
- Leaf spot Brown or black spots that spread and merge in wet weather, sometimes with yellow halos. Pick off affected leaves, clear fallen ones, and water at the base.
- Powdery mildew A white dusty coating over leaves and shoots when roots are dry but the air is humid. Keep plants watered and mulched, prune for airflow, and remove the worst leaves.
- Euonymus scale, the worst of its troubles
Box, Privet, Holly, Pittosporum
Shrubs, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com