© The Dabney Nursery
Plant: Southern Wax Myrtle
Wax Myrtle · Morella cerifera
Size: 3 gal
Light
Bloom
Mature size
More about this plant
A fast growing native evergreen to semi-evergreen shrub with fragrant, glossy olive green leaves and waxy gray berries that feed birds through winter. It is dense and rounded, tolerates salt, wind, drought and wet soil, and works as a screen, hedge or barrier. It hosts the red banded hairstreak butterfly. NC State rates it high in flammability, so keep it out of a home's defensible space.
- Full Sun
- Grows to 20 ft tall and 20 ft wide
- Blooms in spring
- Hardy in USDA zones 7-10
- Evergreen foliage
- Native plant
Plant description
A fast growing native evergreen to semi-evergreen shrub with fragrant, glossy olive green leaves and waxy gray berries that feed birds through winter. It is dense and rounded, tolerates salt, wind, drought and wet soil, and works as a screen, hedge or barrier. It hosts the red banded hairstreak butterfly. NC State rates it high in flammability, so keep it out of a home's defensible space.
- Flowers
- Petalless, drab yellowish green catkins in April.
- Foliage
- Simple, alternate, olive green leaves 3 to 6 inches long, glossy and leathery, evergreen to semi-evergreen.
- Fruit
- Small waxy gray to white drupes in clusters on the previous season growth.
- Bark & stems
- Thin, smooth bark in light brown to gray, almost white.
- Pruning
- Can be pruned, but next season fruit forms on old growth.
- Native range
- New Jersey to Central America and the Caribbean
