ha ha Lisa, I just emailed Ricky yesterday asking the same question for the front of our house! I also would like a croton suggestion for one that can be kept as a sm-med size house plant for our front living room window. There are so many variations out there. I started looking for the outside and that's when I decided to email the EXPERT and get his input.

Crotons make a miserable hedge. Keep in mind that Crotons are really small trees. That having been said, they can be part of a hedge if cropped correctly as they grow.

The yellow/green varieties tend to take sun much better than the darker red/orange ones. I like to underplant them with bromeliads and/or ferns as they grow.

Ricky, do you mean trees as in "standards" or can they be grown fairly tall and bushy? She is not looking for a cropped, sharp-edged hedge, but an informal, colorful barrier for privacy.

Can you suggest another barrier plant that does not attract bees and is 5-10' tall?

She is a beginner, and needs something easy. Not a gardener, yet(G). I'm going to try to bring her to your swap to see a garden done correctly!

Lisa

You can make them multi-trunked if you start cropping them at 12" high. But regardless, they will eventually get leggy. I'll show her some that I've been chopping for over 5 years to give her an idea.

Amazing...Dennis already picked out a shrub for the front!! Fire Bush! He has been talking to the golf course landsccape guy and thought since I love the birds, bees and butterflies.....amazing he took that much thought about plants...amazing!!!!!

Anyway, Ricky, tonight when we went to dinner, I was noticing how crotons look so perfectly cool in a spaced area or on their own. Their structures truly are not meant for hedge life! Thanks, so can you recommend a common one for interior house-plant activity??

I actually have a mixed hedge of several different kinds of crotons that I love. It also has an oak, a sabal palm, two red hibiscus and two surinam cherries in it. I wouldn't have planted the cherries myself because they're invasive, or the hibiscus because they get buggy. Someday I'll take those out.

It was all planted before we bought the house, and I've planted the understory with broms, a plumbago, some short heliconias. In one place where there was a low gap, I put a split-leaf philodendron in front of the hedge to screen the pool.

It's a very informal look, and I love it. The crotons include Johannis and Thanksgiving (see Ricky's post on the swap list for pics.)

I've rooted both, and in less than three years I have three-foot babies, so at least where I have them, they've grown pretty quickly. They are in semi-shade, however. I've put them in full-sun and they're not growing nearly as quickly, but they seem happy. And with the exception of one, they're all green and yellow varieties. The only one with red gets a good bit of shade from the live oak.

Ricky's the expert, but it can be done as long as you don't want a formal hedge.

Lisa, I'm bringing some rooted babies to the swap and can start some more if you're interested in them. They won't be well established in the pots, but in six weeks I can get some good roots on them and pot them up.

Susannah