Thick, leathery evergreen leaves, flowers in mid-spring and growth quick enough to close a gap fast: common laurel (Prunus laurocerasus) is the standard shrub where you want to block a view and dull the noise of a passing road. Space the stems about a metre apart and prune regularly, and the foliage knits into a dense, sound-absorbing wall.
| Name | Prunus laurocerasus |
|---|---|
| Family | Rosaceae |
| Type | shrub, bay |
| Height | 3 to 16 feet (1 to 5 m) |
| Exposure | full sun to shade |
| Soil | ordinary |
| Flowering | mid-spring |
| Foliage | evergreen |
It is appreciated for its rapid growth and its view-breaking properties.
You can plant common laurel from mid-autumn to early spring with a preference for fall to favor root development before winter.
In the hedge, place the base of each stem at least 32 inches (80 cm) to 3 feet (1 meter) apart for a hedge around 6 ½ feet (2 meters) feet tall. If you need to climb higher, space the plants a bit more.
During dry spells, water deeply and less often to encourage deeper rooting, and keep mulch over the root zone, which suppresses rather than eliminates competing grass and weeds.
There are 2 pruning seasons for your common laurel, in spring and in fall.
It is a shrub that can bear pruning well, even heavy pruning.
It is a shrub that is quite resilient to most diseases, but isn’t without its own share of parasite attacks, especially aphids.
They are easy to recognize on the underside of leaves, they are small green-colored insects.
When leaves turn yellow or begin to lose their color, it usually means that some type of nutrient is lacking in the soil, and adding fertilizer might be necessary.
Finally, if orange spots appear on the common laurel, it is due to silver leaf disease. The only solution is to eliminate infected specimens, because there is no known treatment and it would spread to the entire common laurel hedge if left unchecked.
Common laurel shrugs off most diseases, but three troubles do turn up on hedges. What you see on the leaves tells you which one you are dealing with.
| Problem | What you see | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Aphids | Small green insects clustered on the underside of the leaves | Treat against aphids |
| Nutrient shortage | Leaves turning yellow or losing their colour | Add fertiliser to the soil |
| Silver leaf disease | Orange spots on the shrub | Remove infected specimens; there is no treatment and it spreads along the hedge |
Only silver leaf disease calls for grubbing plants out; the other two are easily put right.
Common laurel, also called cherry laurel, contains cyanide that one should of course never ingest.
Some herbivores can even die from it, as well as animals such as dogs who might try to taste the common laurel’s leaves, branches, or fruits.
All cherry laurels share the same leathery evergreen leaf and tolerance of hard pruning, but they differ hugely in size and spread. Match the cultivar to the job: a tall screen, a clipped formal hedge, or low cover under trees.
| Variety | Habit | Foliage | Best use |
|---|---|---|---|
| Otto Luyken | Dwarf, wider than tall | Narrow, glossy dark green | Low hedge, shady borders |
| Green Carpet | Low, spreading | Small, glossy green | Edging and ground cover |
| Prunus laurocerasus ‘Rotundifolia’ | Tall and vigorous, faster growing | Broad, glossy mid-green | Fast tall screening hedge; for hedging it is planted more than all the others |
| Mount Vernon | Dwarf, carpeting | Small, dark green | Ground cover under trees |
| Novita | Tall, upright | Large, glossy, dark | Hedging in cold gardens |
| Herbergii | Medium, dense and upright; tolerates heavy pruning | Narrow, dark green, thick and leathery evergreen | Formal clipped hedge, dense noise-absorbing wall |
| Etna | Medium, compact upright; tolerates heavy pruning | Bronze-red young shoots, thick and leathery evergreen | Low hedge or specimen shrub, dense noise-absorbing wall |
| Schipkaensis | Medium, spreading | Narrow, dark green | Hardy informal hedge |
| Zabeliana | Low and wide-spreading | Very narrow, willow-like | Ground cover on banks |
| Castlewellan | Medium, bushy | Cream-marbled variegation | Bright accent or light hedge |
Common laurel, a natural sound barrier
Common laurel is an excellent natural sound barrier.
If you live near a busy passing road, near a highway or simply in a noisy neighborhood, this shrub is one of the best possible natural sound barriers there are.
Due to its dense foliage made of thick, leathery leaves, noise is absorbed and reduced much more than most other types of shrubs.
In a hedge, alternate common laurel with other evergreen shrubs to increase overall visual impact: a beautiful mixed hedge.
And also:
Credits for images shared to Nature & Garden (all edits by Gaspard Lorthiois):
Laurel berries by Ulrike Leone under Pixabay license
Common laurel floral buds by Hans Braxmeier under Pixabay license
Common laurel hedge by Roger Eavis ★ under © CC BY 2.0
Birds spread many black-berried shrubs, such as elder, privet and buckthorn, dropping seeds in hedgerows and woodland, where any unwanted seedlings are easiest to pull up while their roots are still small.
