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love_savannah

What's this Home Depot Shrub with no name?

love_savannah
14 years ago

We have several of these shrubs that were planted shortly after the house was built in 1992. They were purchased at Home Depot but back then, we didn't think about keeping the tags. We haven't seen them in other yards in our area. I was wondering if anybody knows what they are. Here are my photos. You guys & gals are the best...thank you!

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Comments (13)

  • gardenguru1950
    14 years ago

    Cleyera japonica, JAPANESE CLEYERA.

    Joe

  • rhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7
    14 years ago

    Also called Ternstroemia gymnanthera. They are quite common in your location, generally speaking. A much favored landscape ornamental.

  • bahia
    14 years ago

    According to Sunset's Western Garden Book, Cleyera and Ternstroemia are actually two similar looking but different plants. I'm more familiar with Ternstroemia gymnanthera being grown here in the San Francisco Bay Area, and this doesn't quite look like it.

  • love_savannah
    Original Author
    14 years ago

    Gardenguru, Rhizo and Bahia, thanks for the input. After your posts, I did some research and it seems that even nurseries selling Cleyera and Ternstroemia lump these two plants together and confuse the names. I found a very heated GW discussion on the subject (Link below if anybody's interested. Bahia, I read your comment there.) The picture below was posted in that thread. It's a pic of the tag from a Cleyera Ternstroemia gymnanthera shrub purchased at Lowe's. I don't think the poster (zamiagarden Z9) will not mind me sharing it with you here, since I'm using the pic on the GW site.

    {{gwi:159484}}

    According to my Southern Living Garden Book, "In the Southeast, plants often sold as species Cleyera japonica are usually Ternstroemia gymnanthera."

    I Goog'd for images and still am not sure which one we planted. The pictures I found on the web were too small or too far off to compare. The shrub is not as popular as it was when all of the Red Tips, Photinia fraseri were dying with the fungus Entomosporium maculatum. Anyway, my question has been answered and I'm happy to know that it's one of the two. That's good enough for me.

    Thank you all for helping me out.

    Here is a link that might be useful: Cleyera, Ternstroemia - GW Thread

  • Embothrium
    14 years ago

    Note that the picture card shown does not say Cleyera Ternstroemia gymnanthera, which would be a mistake as it would be using two genera in one binomial, but rather it give Cleyera as a common name.

    Followed by Ternstroemia gymnanthera Bronze Beauty TM as the botanical name and selling name respectively ('Bronze Beauty' TM is incorrect, it is either a trademark Bronze Beauty TM - as shown at first on the card - or a cultivar 'Bronze Beauty').

  • tugbrethil
    14 years ago

    Cleyera doesn't grow here in Phoenix, while Ternstoemia does. On the Ternstroemias I've seen, they had a very small, rounded, widely spaced serration on the leaf edges, and umbel-like flowers, rather than tassels, such as show in the first picture.

    Kevin : )

  • Embothrium
    14 years ago

    Tassel probably a catkin dropping from above, maybe out of an oak tree.

  • love_savannah
    Original Author
    14 years ago

    Bboy, you're correct. That is a tassel that fell from another tree.

    Tugbrethil, from what I could find out about these plants, there are several varieties. I'm waiting for it to bloom because I honestly can't remember what the flowers look like on these shrubs.

  • Embothrium
    14 years ago

    They aren't much.

  • carol23_gw
    14 years ago

    Linked below

    Here is a link that might be useful: flowers

  • Embothrium
    14 years ago

    Notice the resemblance to Camellia.

  • love_savannah
    Original Author
    14 years ago

    You're right, not much to that bloom. No wonder I can't remember what the flowers look like.

    You know, we have a large Camellia planted next to these shrubs and they do look similar.

  • Embothrium
    14 years ago

    And they look well when planted beside one another.

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