Have never seen this one mentioned before, it was probably selected and named by the arboretum but not introduced - or didn't persist in commerce. And it is not mentioned by A. L. Jacobson in his 1996 Ten Speed Press book North American Landscape Trees, which was based in large part on a comprehensive survey of wholesale listings going back into history - although the example you are showing may of course be small enough to post date 1996.

One thing I can see is that this has the pointed top and the leaf shape of Fraser photinia. So they apparently have it assigned to the wrong species.

Plantings of Fraser photinia elsewhere in the country are being spoiled by a leaf spot problem, the shrub is basically being rendered obsolete where this occurs - perhaps by now pretty much everywhere it has been extensively planted. So unless this USNA plant represents an immune clone I would not put much into trying to get it.

It's not on their list so apparently they haven't done anything with it yet. If it is in fact their own selection.

http://www.usna.usda.gov/Newintro/genus.html

And now I see it is on the market and it is a Dirr plant. Some of the material shown on the Bold Spring site looks more like P. serratifolia.

http://www.boldspring.com/trees/pgg-mst

Dirr selected and named 'Green Giant' from a (perhaps found) plant on the UGA campus in Athens. He's always keeping an eye out for interesting and superior forms. Most Chinese Photinias I've seen have looked more coarsely-leafed and with more prominent serrations.

I suspect this form is perhaps less serrated, and has a fuller, denser form than many others? Not sure. I'm not entirely convinced this couldn't still be a chance hybrid, but Dirr should know and definitely calls it the species Photinia serratifolia (syn. Photinia serrulata). Otherwise he'd have called it Photinia x 'Green Giant'.

Photinia serratifolia is sort of an old fashioned plant and there are still a few (very few) around here. When Red-tips came on the scene, they stopped selling Chinese photinia. I've never seen them for sale. And the few that are left are being removed. They do come up volunteer in the South though I don't think they are considered invasive, and therefore much less so up here in the Mid-Atlantic.

Bold Spring photos on page linked to above show intermediate looking plants that are perhaps of hybrid origin - although a previously more apparent P. serratifolia on my place has gone to making similar looking shoots and foliage in recent years. So the next thing would be to find out what specific technical characters separate the hybrid from the one parent.

The field stock Bold Spring is offering on their site appears to have a tightly upswept habit not like that of the USNA plant, except for both instances being more dense than usual.

Dirr has sometimes misidentified plants he shows pictures of in his photo books and his Manuals have had numerous inapt or otherwise grating comments for years so I wouldn't count on him to be a God of Horticulture who absolutely never generates any gaffes - he might or might not have placed the Georgia photinia under the correct species.

6. What is the color of the new growth?

The plant in the OP is quite handsome with its polished foliage. I would recommend that over Leatherleaf Viburnum anyday.

from the Bold Spring Nursery site: Green Giant Photinia is reputed to have surprizing shade tolerance. That is a welcome trait. There is a need for residential plantings to screen out the neighbor. When these plantings are in shade the bottoms thin out. The plant in OP is in high shade. See how foliage goes all the way down.

from the Bold Spring Nursery site: Oval-rounded form that is more upright than most, extremely dense. Very desirable but why the name 'Green Giant'?

'Very desirable but why the name 'Green Giant'?'

I think you'll have to ask Dr. Dirr why he named it that. Photinias grow very large in the South and I can only speculate that the original plant was huge.

PU, stinky flowers. I guess that answers one of my questions.

I'm normally not into Asian plants. I do have a fondness for BLEs that will do well in the midAtlantic. This looks like one that has potential.

Does anyone know, do deer eat foliage of evergreen photinias?

Sam, you are the master of propagation! I've read deer will eat them. They don't bother mine, but I have other things they prefer. I would think they'd eat Red Tips before spinier Chinese photinia. All depends upon the deer and what other delicacies you have to offer them.

I do know that rabbits will eat them. But that may depend upon the year and how much snow cover there is, and for how long.

The new foliage on Chinese photinia is sort of bronzy.

Deer WILL definitely eat Photinia foliage in the North when there is snow cover and other greens are not available, but they are not preferred apparently. The past two Winters were really BAD and they did do a lot of damage, but this year is a cake walk and even with the big snows (now all melted), they seem only slightly damaged.

Same plant, pic taken yesterday at Nat'l Arb. This answers my question, new growth not bronzy and definitely not red. Am fond of this plant, I can deal with the short-lived flowers.

It's a beauty Sam. That's pretty dense growth for part shade. I'll bet it blooms more with more sun. New growth looks to be about a week ahead of my area. I had a Chinese photinia in my yard when I lived in DC. Sometimes the new growth could get zapped by a late freeze. Also, there was some kind of larva that infested the new foliage buds. It's always something.

I guess I'll have to eat my words (just a little) here are pix taken today of the same plant. It looks like the soft new growth has been nipped by frost in some places. It does indeed appear a little bronzy but that will change to green pretty soon.

Yes the previous shot was too late in the sequence for the tinting to be as evident.

Chinese photinia does leaf out early and can get zapped by untimely (to us anyway) frosts.

same plant today, no clue why this was done.

Ack! Are you kidding me? Maybe someone was taking a LOT of cuttings. Maybe it's a trial to see how well it takes to serious shearing.

sam_md --- Deerazilla?

Now that we have the wedding out of our systems, its back to reality LOL

I asked at the NA about the photinia and here's what they said. The plant was getting too large for the spot. They practiced rejuvenation pruning and will continue to work on the plant in the future.

Looks like it had plenty of room to me. And if it's their only one - and there had been a crowding issue - they should have first looked to see if there was something not unique to their collections that could have been gotten out of the way of the photinia.

I'm also thinking if they had time for things like this maybe they should have instead looked into finding out why the pieris(?) to the right of the photinia (in the preceding shot) is nearly bare, as though it has root rot.

Of course, if they have knucklehead stuff like the cutting down of the photinia going on in that part of the collection somebody might also have "lion-tailed" (pruned to have mostly bare branches with little puffs of foliage on the ends) the pieris-like shrub as well.

Even public gardens with large budgets and hiring-by-committee are not entirely free of a component of employees who undertake ignorant ruinous pruning operations that spoil significant specimens, commit other unfortunate acts which make them appear as though they have had no serious training in the subject area at all.

Now the photinia will have no function as an example of what size and shape might be expected from a planting of this selection during a specific time frame. After it grows back up to hide the pruning if anyone ever looks up the date of the original planting and then looks at whatever size it has at that time they will be given a false impression of its growth potential.

I have 13 Green Giants in my back yard in the Atlanta area. Looking forward to privacy soon. They are about 8’ tall now.

PU what stinky flowers. I can actually say when I put my nose to the flower it burns, kinda like chlorine. Notice emerging growth is green.

subtropix wrote: " deer WILL definitely eat photinia foliage......" As I found out winter 2020 they will eat every leaf they can reach.

I'm not really into Asian plants. This will be an interesting one to observe. Hopefully this 'Green Giant' won't get leaf spot like the much more common Red Tip.