Indian hawthorn
Rhaphiolepis indica
also called rhaphiolepis, india hawthorn
The tidy evergreen mound outside half the banks and subdivisions of the South: leathery leaves, pink or white spring bloom, blue-black berries, and a natural dome that never needed the shearing it always gets.
- Type
- Shrub · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Green
- Flower color
- Pink
- Sunlight
- Full sun; shade invites the leaf spot
- Watering
- Low once established
- Soil
- Well-drained; tolerates sand, clay and salt air
- Feeding
- Gentle all-organic
- USDA zones
- 8a–11a
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Plant out
- at the last spring frost
- Plant spacing
- 3 ft 11 in
- In-row spacing
- 3 ft 3 in
- Between rows
- 4 ft 11 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 Indian hawthorn’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.
- When
- Not harvested. Prune, if truly needed, right after the spring bloom, and lightly.
- What to look for
- A branch out of the dome's line. Spotted purple-red leaves mean the disease, and shearing is how it spreads.
- How to harvest
- Take individual branches back inside the outline with hand pruners and never shear: the natural dome is the shape, and open airflow is the leaf-spot defense. Rake fallen leaves out from under it in wet years.
- How often
- A few minutes after bloom, most years none at all.
- Storing the crop
- Nothing to store. The blue-black winter berries carry the mockingbirds and cedar waxwings; that crop was never yours.
Its one disease is the entire story of the plant: Entomosporium leaf spot rides on sheared, overhead-watered, crammed-together mass plantings. Give one plant room, sun and a dry leaf, and it is as tough as the parking lot it faces.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com