Portuguese Laurel

Nature Hills is proud to finally carry the lovely Portuguese Laurel (Prunus lusitanica)! A heat-tolerant broadleaf evergreen shrub with glossy, dark green foliage and fragrant white flowers in spring! This slower-growing form of Laurel takes to formal shearing like a champ and won't need much maintenance once it's trained how you desire!

You'll enjoy the lush, densely held foliage all year long but in spring prepare to be amazed! The butterflies and bees will adore the 10-inch long racemes of fragrant white flowers - their scent giving a nod to this shrubs Rose family connections. The songbirds will equally enjoy these shrubs for their dense cover and nesting sites. Plus, if you haven't sheared or pruned your shrub, small black fruit appears where the flowers once were and draw in more hungry feathered friends!

Portuguese Laurel is highly adaptable to hot climates of USDA hardiness zones 6-9 as well as tolerant of deer, coastal (saline) conditions, and even drought once established! Readily sheared, trained, and pruned into shapes and forms as well as Boxwood or Holly and just as gorgeous year-round. You will love Laurel shrub's low-maintenance attitude!

Planting and Application:

These can be large shrubs, but because they are slower growing, you won't have a monster shrub devouring your entire yard any time soon! Easily kept in check with annual pruning, you'll enjoy tall privacy and screening hedges, windbreaks and shelterbelts that the deer seem to ignore unless desperate. Accented by spring flowers and summer fruit, your shrubs will be the wildlife hotspot all year long!

Create property-defining hedges that act as dense barriers and year-round screening, or as tall backdrops that set off everything else before them beautifully! Create an allée behind your garden bench or sculpture, or a semi-circle around your seating areas to stop the noise of a busy street, slow the wind and create a well of tranquility for you to relax in where the neighbors prying eyes can't penetrate!

Portuguese Laurel can grow to a hefty 20-25 feet in mature height and a mature spread of 15-25 feet when allowed to grow without pruning. However, you will be amazed at what you can do with these versatile shrubs! Tall enough growing to be trained into a low-maintenance tree form, both single and multi-stemmed, sheared into circles, pyramids, or towers to accent and accentuate your formal hedges in any way your imagination can think of!

• Fragrant 10-Inch White Blooms
• Lush Dense Dark Green Foliage
• Low-Maintenance Broadleaf Evergreen
• Large-Sized Shrub or Tree Form With Training
• Formal or Informal Hedges, Backdrops, Windbreak & Privacy

#ProPlantTips for Care:

Laurel bushes can grow in nearly any combination of soil and sun, doing best in full sun or partial shade. Preferring more sun in cool climates, and more shade in warmer areas. Laurel thrives in slightly deep, fertile, moist, humusy, well-drained soil, yet tolerates poor, sandy, or clay soils. Water deeply, regularly in the first growing season to establish the root system, but once established, reduce watering frequency. Established plants can tolerate dry shade.

Laurel are easy to grow, and require almost no maintenance, aside from optional Pruning which is best performed as soon as they are finished flowering. The other reason everyone loves these underused shrubs? Deer seem to avoid them unless desperate!

• Full Sun & Partial Shade
• Humusy Well-Drained Soil - Even Clay
• Moderate Moisture - Tolerates Dry Shade Once Established
• Appreciates Mulch
• Prune After Flowering
• Deer Resistant

Portuguese Laurel is a sizeable broadleaf evergreen shrub with so much versatility and year-round interest! Hurry and order this new introduction by NatureHills.com today before they sell out!