A very popular landscape shrub installed by both professionals and homeowners is Loropetalum or Chinese fringe. This shrub offers attractive foliage and flowers along with being evergreen.
When you visit a nursery to select this plant for your landscape, realize that there are now many selections of Loropetalum available. Learn about a few of the common selections in this recording of ‘In the Garden’, with UF/ IFAS Extension Escambia County Horticulture Agent Beth Bolles, so that you are successful at matching the appropriate plant with your landscape needs.
One of the major issues homeowners face in their landscapes is selecting a tree that in maturity will be in scale with the rest of their garden and home. While we have several actual trees that fit the bill, I would like to focus today on thinking outside the box by selecting a larger growing shrub that we can “limb up” into a small tree!
Loropetalum in its tree form
Today’s plant is Loropetalum chinense, also known as Chinese Fringe Flower, a beautiful import related to our native Witchazels (Hammemelis spp.). Some species of Loropetalum can have green foliage and white flowers, but it is generally found in its coveted maroon-foliaged form, which is the subject of this piece. Most cultivars of Loropetalum (with the exception of a few newer ‘dwarf’ cultivars) are large (to 20’ tall and about half as wide) evergreen shrubs that prefer partial shade to full sun. In the early spring, it bursts with wavy, fringe-like red, pink, or white flowers!
In order to “tree-form” the plant, one should gradually begin removing lower lateral branches, crossing or rubbing branches, and any potentially diseased branches, leaving 5-7 main trunks. Eventually, most common cultivars of Loropetalum can easily be pruned to have 4’-5’ of exposed trunk!
Unfortunately, Loropetalum has been both overused and misused as a tightly sheared foundation plant in every landscape imaginable, from gas stations to Aunt Gertie’s rental house. As such, it has gotten a bad reputation as a monster that has to be constantly sheared to keep it in line. This reputation is completely unwarranted if using the shrub as it was meant to be used, as a large specimen shrub or a graceful small-tree! Yet another example of how using the right plant in the right place can change the public’s entire perception of it! Try tree-forming a Loropetalum today and enjoy it for years to come! Happy Gardening!
Warm and wet weather in the Florida Panhandle presents the optimum conditions for the development of bacterial gall on loropetalums. Shoot dieback is usually the first and most noticeable symptom of the disease. The dieback can be followed down the branch to dark colored, warty galls that vary in size. The galls enlarge and eventually encircle the branch resulting in branch or plant death. Olive, oleander, and ligustrum are also hosts for the bacteria that causes the galls, Pseudomonas savastanoi.
Dieback symptoms on loropetalum leaf from bacterial gall. Photo Credit: Matt Lollar, University of Florida/IFAS
Bacterial gall on loropetalum. Photo Credit: Matt Lollar, University of Florida/IFAS
The most common source of bacterial gall is from the plant nursery. Prior to purchase, inspect plants for galls near the soil line. If plants have already been installed in the landscape, remove any branches containing galls. Pruning cuts should be made several inches below the gall. After each cut, dip pruners in a 10% bleach solution or spray with isopropyl alcohol to avoid spreading the disease to other parts of the plant or other plants. Prune during dry weather.
The best control for bacterial gall is selecting good quality plant material. For more information on this disease, please visit: Bacterial Gall on Loropetalum. More information on disease issues in the home landscape can be found at: Lawn and Garden Plant Diseases.
