Pronounciation: FRAX-i-nus gri-FIFTH-ee-i

Hardiness zones
Sunset Undetermined
USDA Undetermined (though tropical origin portends frost sensitivities)

Landscape Use: Tropical to mild temperate evergreen shade tree, relatively diminutive like Raywood ash compared with other ash trees. A good specimen residential tree for mesic settings. Also, a good lawn tree for open and sunny locations.

Form & Character: Upright to rounded and oblong canopy, tight, formal, clean, semi-tropical.

Growth Habit: Semi-deciduous to evergreen (depending on degree of winter cold), woody, broadleaf perennial tree, moderately upright to 45-feet tall with a 25-feet spread.

Foliage/Texture: Smaller than typical ash leaves, glabrous and shiny green, pinnately compound, mostly 5 to 11 ovate to elliptic leaflets per leaf, trunk mostly smooth and light gray; medium fine texture.

Flowers & Fruits: Fragrant panicles of hermaphrodite white flowers in large showy and fragrant inflorescences.

Seasonal Color: White flowers during spring.

Temperature: Tolerant

Light: Mostly full sun, avoid highly reflective western exposures.

Soil: Light, loamy sand best, well drained.

Watering: Regular supplemental water is needed especially in Phoenix.

Pruning: Elevate canopy base (crown raising) VERY conservatively to avoid trunk sunscald; do not crown thin. Young trees might need staking.

Propagation: Cutting in autumn best.

Disease and Pests: Locally unknown

Additional comments: Griffith ash is a common landscape tree in Australia, but not on the other side of the world in Phoenix. It is also a timber tree in Taiwan. Griffith ash is a relative new, 'experimental' tree for the Phoenix area, though it has been grown successfully in the Tucson and southern California areas. The cultivar 'Emerald Wave^TM' is an introduction from Monrovia Nursery in California. Initials trial results of growing this tree in the Phoenix area suggest it is heat sensitive and prone to heat stress injuries such as trunk and branch sunscald during summer months.