Hi Paula,

I love the way red-tipped photinias look when they are healthy. The hard part, though, is keeping them healthy. We had a nice lovely unpruned hedge of them at our home in Fort Worth, and I noticed when we drove by the house back around Christmas that they are still there. They look kind of overcrowded now because we only planted them about 8' apart. If I were planting them nowadays, I'd plant them 12' apart because they become huge monsters with age.

The problem with red-tipped photinia is that that there really isn't any way to prevent or cure the entomosporium leaf spot that has plagued them since at least the late 1980s or early 1990s. Some people try spraying them with a fungicide like Daconil (chlorothalonil) but it shows only moderate success and has to be reapplied fairly often.

I asked myself what I would do if I were in your shoes, and I decided I'd yank them out. If the choice is to fight the same battle over and over again with a fungal leaf spot disease that is a problem for these plants virtually nationwide or to remove them and plant something that is better adapted, I'd plant something better-adapated and low-maintenance, like a member of the holly family.

I wondered if I was being too harsh on them, so I checked the website of Texas gardening guru Neil Sperry to see what he has to say about red-tipped photinias nowadays, and his answer, which is about what I expected, is linked below.

It was Neil who warned on his radio show way back in the early- to mid-1990s that red-tipped photinias were showing high disease rates and ought to be replaced. Clearly he hasn't changed his mind since then.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Red-Tipped Photinias

wow! The pics did save right! Me & photobucket needs to spend a bit more "quality time".

Thanks Dawn. I knew I could count on an honest answer. I love photinia's....but you're right. I've got too much more I want to do other than schedule 4 week rotation of spraying these. I had them at my home in SW OKC and they did beautifully and last I looked, they were still growing strong. Of course, they were planted in 1995...so maybe they were part of the last strains to be hardy.

Well, I'm off to do some research of holly's....

Paula

Paula,

You know, several years ago, somebody introduced a supposedly fungal-resistant red-tipped photinia. I think it was called 'Colorado' and it was supposed to stay smaller and also be disease-resistant, but I have no personal knowledge of how it has performed in real landscapes.

One of my favorite ways to 'research' various plants is to visit the website of Sooner Plant Farm since they seem to do their research incredibly well and offer cultivars that do well here. If I cannot find a plant on their website, I do a lot more research on it to try and figure out why they don't carry it...you know, to figure out what they know that I don't know.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Sooner Plant Farm