Hedging Plants – Cotoneaster Franchetii

Name – also known as wintergreen.

Description and uses – this is a fast growing, dense, evergreen hedge with small ovate grey-green foliage, grey-green above and white beneath. It bears clusters of pink and white flowers in June followed by teardrop shaped orange-red berries in autumn. Deciduous cotoneasters are fine plants with attractive flowers in late spring and early summer, but they are mainly grown for their brilliant displays of berries and bright leaf tints in autumn, when they become a major feature. They cope well with shade, although the neat pink flowers and bright berries are more prolific in full sun.

Maintenance and problems – originally from Tibet and China, this plant is very hardy. The plant can be pruned at any time of year, but supposedly it is best to cut it back in February. Bad pruning is the chief reason cotoneasters often appear ugly – to have any grace it needs to reach its full sweep. If you plant it somewhere where it often needs to be pruned it will tend to look stunted and deformed so this is not a plant for those who want a clipped and formal hedge. The best way to treat it is to trim back vigorous shoots after flowering and shape thorough in February. Makes a hedge of up to seven feet tall.

Hedging cotoneaster photograph by D H Wright, used under a creative commons attribution licence

hedging yew, hedging berberis, hedging box, hedging cotoneaster, hedging currant, hedging dogwood, hedging edible, hedging euonymus, hedging gorse, hedging guelder rose, hedging hawthorn, hedging hazel, hedging holly, hedging hornbeam, hedging juniper, hedging laurel, hedging Lavender, hedging leyland cypress, hedging photinia, hedging potentilla, hedging privet, hedging pyracantha, hedging rose, hedging sloe, hedging thuja