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Scientific: Ligustrum japonicum (often sold as Ligustrum texanum)
Common: Japanese privet, wax-leaf privet
Family: Oleaceae
Origin: China, Japan

Pronounciation: La-GUS-trum ja-PON-i-cum

Hardiness zones
Sunset
4-24
USDA 7 (with cold protection), 8-11

Landscape Use: Informal hedge plant, background, screen, small multiple-trunk patio tree, filler plant, containers, accent.

Form & Character: Upright and rounded, dense, formal, old fashioned, a landscape dinosaur.

Growth Habit: Evergreen, woody, perennial broadleaf shrub, moderately upright and rounded to 15-feet tall with equal spread. Can be maintained at 5- to 6-feet tall.

Foliage/Texture: Leaves are thick, glabrous, waxy, ovate and slightly recurved downward toward the apical tip, opposite, to 4-inches long, prominent mid vein, prominent stem lenticels; medium texture.

Flowers & Fruits: Small, white flowers in terminal panicled clusters, musty smelling (in a granola hippy way); fruits small, black, waxy globose to 1/4-inch long, clustered.

Seasonal Color: White flowers in late spring (usually May).

Temperature: Tolerant of Phoenix cold, but not tolerant of the extreme Phoenix heat unless placed in a mesic landscape design.

Light: In Phoenix, partial is sun best. Always avoid western sun.

Soil: Some chlorosis in wet alkaline soils, well drained.

Watering: Regular water throughout the year.

Pruning: Best pruned in early to mid summer after bloom. Can be pruned in any manner. Which means of course that 'hort clods' will shear Japanese privet into large olive green orbs. Sometimes sheared as a large topiary.

Propagation: Seed, however softwood cuttings will root under mist rather easily.

Disease and Pests: Root rot pathogens, especially Texas root rot, scale, spider mites.

Additional comments: Japanese privet is a dependable filler plant for mesic landscapes. It is widely used across the southern half of the United States from the Pacific to the Atlantic Oceans. In Phoenix, this large shrub is an 'old-fashioned plant' - part of the influx of landscape plants from California nurseries prior to the 1980s and the blossoming of the Arizona wholesale nursery industry.

Taxonomic confusion: Japanese privet has many named cultivars and is often confused with Ligustrum ovalifolium.