Prunus laurocerasus Caucasica - Caucasian Laurel

Popular with gardeners, the Prunus laurocerasus Caucasica, better known as the Cherry Laurel or English Laurel, remains one of the best evergreen hedge plants! A range of products is available depending on your budget, the length of your hedge, your patience, and the time you can dedicate to gardening.

- For an economical English Laurel hedge, opt for 9 cm pots that you can plant all year round. Soil preparation should be meticulous (careful weeding, removal of all roots, create planting trench) and until they establish themselves it is preferable to lay a tarpaulin at the base of the bushes to limit the germination of adventive plants and the need for weeding. Once established, they grow rapidly and will quickly catch up with their cultivated counterparts in pots. This is the most economical solution when it comes to creating a hedge at least 10 m long.

- For a fast-growing English Laurel hedge or to replenish an existing hedge, choose bushes in 3.5-litre, 7.5-litre, 10-litre, or even 18-litre pots. Potted bushes can be planted all year round, except during freezing or extremely hot periods. They are planted in individual planting holes, just like any other garden shrubs. While they have an immediate impact, they take a little longer to "start" and will require more frequent and regular watering, especially when the summer is dry.

Respect the proper planting distance according to the size of your plant! Allow for a space of 60 cm between each plant for bushes in pots, 70 to 80 cm for plants in 2 or 3-litre pots, 80 cm to 1 m for pots from 4 to 10 litres, and 1 m to 1.2 m for pots larger than 10 litres.

Vigorous, hardy, fast-growing, easy to cultivate, and perfectly tolerant of pruning, the Prunus laurocerasus Caucasica is ideally suited for quickly creating splendid dense green screens, privacy screens, and windbreaks.

Native to southeastern Europe and Asia Minor, the Caucasian Laurel is an upright shrub with dense and vigorous growth, measuring 2 to 5 metres in height and 2 to 3 metres in width at maturity. Its tough foliage persists in winter. It consists of wide, dark green, glossy leaves on the upper side, lighter and matte on the underside, and is highly decorative. The light green young shoots contrast beautifully with the dark green, shiny, oval-shaped leaves, measuring 15 to 18 cm long and 3 to 3.5 cm wide. In April-May, upright clusters of 10 to 12 cm covered with tiny white flowers appear at the ends of the shoots, followed in summer by small red ovoid fruits that turn black when ripe. The leaves, fruits, and all parts of the cherry laurel are toxic if ingested due to their cyanide content.

This fast-growing, hardy, very easy to cultivate English Laurel is truly undemanding in terms of soil and exposure, and perfectly suited to pruning, making it one of the most widespread species in Europe for creating hedge screens. It possesses all the qualities required to excel as a low or high trimmed hedge. As a low hedge, it protects against prying eyes; as a high hedge, it forms an excellent windbreak and a very good sound insulator. This English Laurel is sometimes planted in a mixed shrub bed, along with other evergreens such as Portuguese laurel, Elaeagnus ebbingei, Photinia Red Robin.