You might be one of the lucky ones that has one that doesn't bloom! Ours blooms then we have babies growing everywhere (from seed I believe) they aren't supposed to be.

LOL, I never thought about the flowers being the seed-makers!!

I wasn't clear--we DO have a small number of flowers on our bushes. Just not covering the shrubs, like they are on other peoples'. I wonder if they did something to them (ferilitized?) but I'm embarrassed to ask such a naive question about a plant that I have been hating for the past year. I tend to think, though, that the flowering has some link to the pruning or lack thereof. because it seems the plants allowed to grow in their natural shape and size potential are flowering prolifically, and those trimmed as hedges are more spotty. And like I said, mine have almost none.

It's the pruning thing. If you keep your's pruned a lot, you'll cut off the blooming wood. Spring bloomers bloom on old growth, (azaleas, Indian hawthorns, cameleas, flowering quince, forsythia, spirea, wisteria, many climbing roses, etc.) while summer bloomers tend to bloom on new growth (abelias, crape myrtles, Texas sage, buddlea, most other roses, etc.) and can be pruned and pruned and still bloom.

By the way, you can prune your ligustrums right after they finish blooming, and not worry about the berries that bring the babies.

Sally

Hi, I'm new here but there something I need to find out about my Ligustrums. We purchased this house in "99" the plants were here then but they are not shrubs they are trees. Taller than my house with a trunk as big around as a leg of a child (big child). They r up against a chain link fence, I like the idea of using them as privacy hedge. My question is can I top these bushes and force them to grow as a shrub again or should I just leave them as a tree, provides good shade.
Thanks
Alexe

You can top them. My neighbors have topped them to 5 ft or less and they get real bushy from that point, but they grow fast and in two or three years you can hardly tell they have been topped. I think you could cut them almost to the ground and with constant pruning have a privacy hedge.

Or do what I did. I have a line of them across the back fence that are 25 or so ft tall and I've planted the regular tall nandina in front of them so they cover the open spots between the trunks of the ligustrum, which, as you probably noticed, stay pretty leafy fairly low on the trunks

I love how the ligustrums scent the whole yard when they bloom and the birds love the berries. They seed around some, but are easy to pull up.

Ligustrums are originally from China and have made themselves quite at home in Texas.

This was interesting, because most of my neighbors have ligustrums that are planted too close to the house or too close to the corner of the house or by the driveway and are usually flanked by other shrubs, and in a few years they are way out of bounds. Two of these neighbors have a TREE MAN lined up to remove theirs.
They are great plants when they have room to grow to their maximum size. They're like Chinese photinias in that respect.
Unfortunately, many nurserymen or developers plant them in bad places without looking ahead to several years down the line. It's like buying a great Dane pup and expecting him to stay puppy size.
Ideally, people choose their landscaping plants when their house is being built, but most of the time that's not the case.
Builders will also put live oaks in a yard 15 or 20 feet deep, maybe 8 or 10 feet from the street. Before long the tree is up against the house and overhanging the street and has to be butchered.
If I had ligustrums that were way too crowded, I'd get them out the sooner the better and go in with something that is to scale in the spot where they were.

"For the record, I really hate them and wish they weren't there"

Heck, if I were them not only wouldn't bloom but also would harbor an entire scorpion family hoping you "accidentally" step on them. Just kidding. I just couldn't avoid the thought.

Omar

Ouch, Omar!

I wouldn't hate them if they were planted in a proper place initially, and then tended to and trimmed into a nice shape in the years before we moved in.

As it turns out, they *do* host many assassin bugs, though thankfully I have not been stung by one of those yet! I hope I never have the experience!

I let mine grow into trees..they are stunning when they bloom!!...Mine are 11 years old...Jeanne
{{gwi:1345496}}

There you go! I bet Jeanne loves her ligustrums!! (if she doesn't, I do!!):D.I just planted a row of variegated ligustrums at the side of my new house and would love they grew as big as Jeanne's.

Lindsey, try to post pictures of yours so we can have a better idea of what the problem could be. Wouldn't it be that they are planted on top a slab or something? Have you try fertilizing them?

Omar
PS: I would make sure to spray insecticide around those ligustrums if I were you, Lindsay.

Jeanne--gorgeous! I love that canopy look they give. I'm sure your yard smelled fantastic when you snapped that picture.

I'll try posting a picture soon, Omar. I don't spray broad application insecticides. I have too many beneficial insects that I don't want to take out. Last year on my ligustrums there was a wonderful spinyback orbweaver that lived for several weeks on a really ornate web there, catching all kinds of mosquitoes and things. Even the assassins, who I don't want to personally encounter, eat bad bugs and keep the balance tipped toward good.

Wow, I sound like such a bug freak. I have come a long way. I actually rescued a tiny spider from my bathroom today rather than smashing it. It was dangling from the ceiling on a web right at eye level, and it brought back memories of my youth. A spider as small as a piece of fuzz once lowered itself on a web in front of my face as I practiced the piano, and I screamed like the dickens. Scared the spider enough to send it back up the web, but my dad came and smashed it anyway. LOL

Anyway, the ligustrums are *okay* this year. We've been pruning them and trying to give them a better shape than their random hack-job blobbiness that they possessed when we bought the house. I'm planting some marigolds and zinnias from seed underneath them, so maybe there will be a little more color and happiness in that spot later this summer.

I was just wondering when and how to prune them to encourage the best blooming next spring.

Just want to thank you for the information about these trees. We trimmd the smaller ones down and I think I'll just cut the bigger one away from the house. We live out in the country so I am not to worried about how tall they get.
Alexe

I Don't prune my Ligustrums..Only "underneath" to move the canopy up as I want them taller and to have naked branches resembling a Crape Myrtle..and only prune those branches that hang longer on the outer perimeter to achieve an umbrella look..I believe improper early pruning has caused you to not have blooms...I don't have to start "Shaping mine" till around June/July......yes, they smell divine when they bloom...When I walk out I can hear all this buzzing going on above me from the bees....glad yall liked...Jeanne

Wow, Lindseyrose, that spider was just trying to enjoy the music and your Dad did him in. Poor thing! (Like Omar, just kidding)

I'm not sure how late in the season you can get away with pruning and not ruin the blooming. Could you selectively prune in the places it's bothering you, but keep enough of it with the new gowth to have some flowers? I'm not talking about the kind of pruning the city does to trees, but more like hand pruning here and there, so it will keep a nice natural shape, retain some blooming branches, but not get too big. Or let it be tree form, like Jeanne's ligustrums.

Sally

On pruning a Ligustrum, i pruned mine in October, just before winter hit here in Louisiana, and mine is covered with flowers just 6 months later, so it probably depends on where you are located, but 6 months seems to be enough to allow for full flowering. Here are some pics i took of my plant just today. It's 3 years old and i made the mistake of pruning it in late March, early April last year so it didn't flower. Learning from that mistake i pruned it back again in October. It did grow some over the winter months but not enough to hinder the overall shape of the plant. i'm going to try to prune it into a tree asap.

Here is a link that might be useful: My Ligustrum

I hate them. We planted 17 along a wall to grow tall and obscure house next door after removing a giant schefflera in order to bring in a backhoe and put in a pool. The yard is all
new pavers and the robins got bloated fat on the drupes and left black seedy staining droppings all over the patio. I cut off all the flowers and now am fertilizing with high nitrogen in hopes of suppressing flower and drupe production.

Well, I actually like them and have planted 2 tall full hedges. The way to get a full hedge for me was to plant them as tiny little seedlings in full sun in a straight line. Within 3 years I had a thick 5 foot tall even full hedge. Within 5 years I had a 12 foot hedge. That said you can retrain an old one that has gotten out of hand but cutting it way down to about 4 feet, pulling any other invasive partners out of it-hackberries, rebuds etc. and keeping an eye on it. It's prettier if you start with the little ones.

The thing about the seeds... I have not usually had a problem. But one snowy very cold Oklahoma winter day a huge band of robins descended upon them to eat. For some reason after that they flew over by the pool and concrete surrounds-both deck and short walls around the pool. The gamboled and chirped and had a party. They excreted purple on every surface. I thought that surely since it happened in the snow it would just wash away. No it did not.It took months of spring rain and sunshine to get rid of it. Soap and water did not help. I tried. It only happened one year and is amusing to me now.