Leftovers

Not everything we plant makes it to be evaluated. While there isn't enough information to fill out an entire plant page, we wanted to share our experiences to assist others in making decisions. Plants are listed alphabetically along with a brief description of how the plants performed.

Agonis flexuosa 'Burgundy' Burgundy peppermint willow (UC Davis)

  • A large shrub or small tree originating in Australia, this cultivar has a deep burgundy coloration. The foliage color and shape would provide an interesting color and texture to the landscape. Planted in the fall, not enough plants survived their initial winter in the ground to support data collection. However, the survivors did persist and made it through the second winter, albeit dying to the ground. If grown in a more protected site, it might be possible to overwinter this cultivar successfully in our region.

Ilex crenata 'Farrowone' Sky Box® Japanese holly (50% Shade @ South Coast REC & UC Davis)

  • Sky Pointer® holly is an evergreen shrub grown for its pronounced fastigiate habit. Sky Pointer began declining in health and appearance at Davis during the establishment year and by spring of the second year there were not enough plants to collect data. During the treatment year in Irvine, plants began to progressively die off in July at a rate of 25% per month, and by October there was complete mortality. For this reason, we do not recommend this plant for use in WUCOLS Regions 2 and 3.  

Hydrangea quercifolia 'Ruby Slippers' (UC Davis)

  • Unlike the rest of the plants on this page this plant did really well. Our plot design in the shade house results in 4 empty spaces. Being plant nerds we endeavor to fill those spaces to see how different plants perform and identify potentials species to evaluate in the future. However, since there is a sample size of 4 plants (2 plants on Low and one each on High and Moderate irrigation) we are not able to collect data for analysis.  We had hoped to conduct a full evaluation with 24 plants, however that has not come to fruition and thus relegated to the leftovers section.

    Ruby Slippers performed very well in field, even on the lowest treatment and maintained really high levels of aesthetic quality, receiving a lot of positive feedback at the Open House events. At the end of the trial all four plants were rehomed by trials staff and they have continued to perform well in their new landscapes. Even though our data is anecdotal due to the small sampling size, we would be remiss if we didn't share our great experience with Ruby Slippers, and we hope you consider it for your landscape.  

Loropetalum chinense 'Peack' Purple Pixie® & L. c. 'PIILC-I' Crimson Fire & L. c. 'Kurenai Daiou' Jazz Hands Bold® (UC Davis)

  • We have not had good results when trialing Loropetalum chinense cultivars in our fields. In either full sun (Crimson Fire) or 50% shade (Purple Pixie) we had progressive mortality during the establishment year resulting in not enough plants alive to conduct an evaluation in the second year. We hypothesize that this may be due to the boron in our water. This is likely to be a localized occurrence to our site since we have observed Loropetalum growing successfully in other areas of our region, e.g. Sacramento, Stockton, etc. We grew four individuals of Jazz Hands Bold in our shade cloth as a test and they survived for several years and flowering each year. Of the three Loropetalum we trialed this was the most persistent, however, we would not trial another Loropetalum at our site based on our experiences.

Westringia 'Gem Varigated' Sorrento Coast westringia (UC Davis)

  • A low growing evergreen shrub with attractive white variegation on the leaf margin. This was an attractive plant, however they did not survive our winter. If grown in a more protected site, it might be possible to overwinter this cultivar successfully in our region.