Pyracantha

Gary Bachman: Winter is a time when gardeners need to rely on plants like pyracantha to brighten the areas around their homes today on Southern Gardening.

Narrator: Southern Gardening with Gary Bachman is produced by the Mississippi State University extension service.

Gary Bachman: Pyracantha is one of the best choices the home gardener can make. This plant, with its colorful berries can add beauty and interest to any winter landscape. This medium large landscape shrub is semi evergreen in mild winters. The shrub is versatile with many landscape uses. If left unpruned, pyracantha has a casual habit and can be up to 10 foot by 10 foot. Clusters of white flowers are abundant in the springtime. The fruit clusters are prominent from the late fall all the way through to the spring season. The arching branching habit is accentuated by the production of red orange fruits towards the ends. The heavy fruit clusters seem to drip off the branches. Stems with fruit clusters can be brought in and displayed in a vase for a winter decoration.

Perhaps the most popular landscape use is as an espalier specimen. Pyracantha readily accepts being trained flat growing across the trellis. This can really enhance a blank wall or fence. The botanical name for pyracantha literally means fire thorn, the name for which it's commonly known. This plant certainly lives up to this name with the sharp and painful thorns on almost all of the branches. The thorny nature of pyracantha makes this the perfect shrub to plant underneath and around windows. No burglar would want a tangle with one of these shrubs. Pyracantha is a fast growing shrub that is suitable in all of our Mississippi gardens and landscape. I'm horticulturist Gary Bachman for Southern Gardening.

Narrator: Southern Gardening with Gary Bachman is produced by the Mississippi State University extension service.