Great Design Plant: Toyon

Great Design Plant: Toyon

Everyone loves to attract portions of the landscape inside for the holidays — potted pointsettas, evergreen garlands and trees decorate the home annually. This year, think about Toyon (Heteromeles arbutifolia). Its merry red berries and long tail branches will beautify any holiday table, and also its low-maintenance grandeur and environmental advantages will enhance the landscape year round.

Designer Cassy Aoyagi of all FormLA Landscaping recommends using Toyon as a water-wise holiday color alternative, noting that the”beautiful Toyon has a broad range throughout California — from coastal sage to chaparral and oak woodland plant communities, which makes it incredibly diverse in nature and flexible within our own gardens.”

M. Dolly

Botanical name: Heteromeles arbutifolia (syn. Heteromeles arbutifolia var. Arbutifolia, Photinia arbutifolia)
Common names: Toyon, California Christmas berry, Christmas berry, California holly, Hollywood, Christmasberry, California Christmasberry
USDA zones: 7-10
Water necessity: Drought tolerant once established; look enhanced with moderate irrigation
Sun necessity:Full sun to partial shade
Mature size: Dense shrub 6-10′ tall; broad or multi trunked shrub 15-25′ tall
Tolerances: Drought, fire retardant
Environmental advantages:Berries attract wildlife and birds; flowers attract bees; erosion control

James Gaither

Distinguishing attributes. A publicly branching evergreen shrub, Toyon’s weathered look harkens to its native environment.Glossy, dark green toothed leaves and low branching structure exude an almost feral nature, but make this treelike shrub a versatile landscape addition.

Profuse little white blooms appear in summer, softening Toyon’s look.

James Gaither

Fall welcomes the superbly festive berries Toyon is famous for, lasting nicely through fall and winter.

James Gaither

How to utilize it. Located from the coastal ranges and Sierra Nevada foothills of California, Toyon has been utilized extensively in native recovery jobs in the state. It can just as easily serve your own landscape rehabilitation projec,t as they work nicely as slope stabilizers and erosion control.

Multi-branched treelike shrubs are very flexible when it comes to landscape implementations, and Toyon is no different. Toyon can be trained to become more of a vertical open tree or can be permitted to grow to form a dense screen or hedge. Toyon”creates a lush green backdrop, counter-intuitive to our expectations concerning the appearance of low-water plants,” Aoyagi says.

Paul Furman

For the holidays, Toyon’s berry-covered branches provide easy and tasteful decorations as demonstrated within this wreath by Bay Natives Nursery. (More adventuresome folks have even used Toyon’s berries in pies, jams and teas.)

M. Dolly

Toyon is a generally fuss-free and long-lived plant sure to augment your own landscape and add holiday interest to your home for several decades. In the dry landscape, Toyon has evolved to thrive and survive.

Before you plant. Toyon can be susceptible to fireblight — an incurable illness covering bark and leaves which can be brought on through overwatering. Plant in well-drained soil, and some other infected branches if you see signs of disease.

And while those shrubs may seem weak for the first two or three decades, they are hardy to -5 degrees Fahrenheit and can endure mild summers without a lot of watering.

More amazing design crops:
Black Mondo Grass | Feather Reed Grass | New Zealand Wind Grass | Red Kangaroo Paw | Blue Chalk Sticks | Catmint | Slipper Plant

Great layout trees:
Manzanita | Japanese Maple | Persian Ironwood | Smoke Tree | Bald Cypress | Tree Aloe

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