Chinese Photinia

Chinese Photinia is a cousin to the Fraser Red Tipped Photinia. It is a massive shrub which can be pruned into a tree and has lovely white spring flowers. These come in small one gallon pots at the nursery. People often believe they are purchasing a small shrub. This is not the case. Place the Photinia, which ever one you purchase, the Chinese or the Fraser Red Tipped where it can reach twenty to thirty feet in height and ten feet in width. These are massive shrubs that thrive in Texas.

Additionally, if you place this where you will have to trim it, make no mistake about it, you will spend the rest of its life trimming, trimming, trimming. The base of the shrub will be that of a small ornamental tree and this will become a very high maintenance shrub if you intend to use it as a shrub in a small area.

Chinese Photinia with purple barberry

Spring flowers of the Chinese Photinia. This is really a tree and should be planted as though it was a tree and not a shrub.

Fraser Red Tip Photinia

I have no idea why people plant these but I have a basis for a personal bias. Frasier Red Tip Photinia in Texas grow to 20 to 30 feet tall. Images of unpruned natural photinias so you can see how much work actually pruning one of this can be. They are lovely in their natural state as a hedge but I will never understand why these are planted to be pruned.

Red Tip Photinia Mid-March in Texas. In its natural state the Red Tipped Photinia is mounding and lovely. Pruned it loses its lustre and shape. Plus that is a huge amount of work. Plant a shrub to grow to its natural height. Don’t spend your time or your money with a gardener needlessly pruning a shurb.