Pronounciation: Foe-TIN-ee-a FRA-sir-eye

Hardiness zones
Sunset 4-24 (2 and 3 with cold protection)
USDA 7 (with protection), 8-11 (difficult in arid regions)

Landscape Use: New foliar accent shrub, informal hedge, background screen, small flowering tree standard for mesic and oasis landscape design motifs.

Form & Character: Upright, rounded, dense, robust, clean, and colorful.

Growth Habit: Evergreen, woody, broadleaf perennial large shrub to small tree, moderate graowth vigor to 6- to 8-feet tall if grown as a shrub to upwards of 20-feet tall if grown as a tree standard (as often done in coastal California).

Foliage/Texture: Leaves are elliptic, entire with finely serrate margins to 3- to 5-inches long, broadly cuneate at base; medium texture.

Flowers & Fruits: Showy, small white flowers in corymbs, musty fragrance, fruit inconspicuous.

Seasonal Color: White flowers in late February and March in Phoenix and Tuscon (late April and early May in Prescott and Payson), bright red new foliage most common during spring and early summer.

Temperature: Tolerant

Light: Full sun to partial shade, avoid southwest and western exposures in Phoenix.

Soil: Foliar chlorosis in alkaline soils.

Watering: Regular water in Phoenix required.

Pruning: Fraser photinia hedges are usually sheared by the 'Horticultural clods of Phoenix' (aka 'Hort clods') during growing season to promote additional spurts of new growth, reddish foliar color. Otherwise prune lightly. With care and attention (and competence). Fraser photina can be trained by 'master pruners' into a colorful accent standard.

Hort tips: Because of its susceptibility to foliar diseases, always sterilize pruning equipment prior to pruning Fraser photinia.

Propagation: Asexually by softwood stem cuttings.

Disease and Pests: Entosporium bacterial leaf spot, fireblight, powdery mildew.

Additional comments: Under the right Phoenix conditions, Fraser photinia will grow spectacular bright red new foliage and colorful spring flowers. Fraser photinia is not very common in Phoenix and Tucson, but is more common in higher elevation Arizona cities such as Prescott and Payson. In central and northern California, it is often seen as a small standard tree. In the southeastern United States, Fraser photinia was once an incredibly popular large hedge plant; however, entomosporium leaf spot has become such a regional problem because of the humid summers that its popularity is now waning.

Excellent new cultivars include 'Tuscan Orange' (orange red new foliage and stems), 'Red Robin Compacta' (dwarf and compact growth habit), and 'Magical Volcano' (more serrated leaf margins).