Pretty Pittosporums for Screening in Your Garden
Pittosporums have an amazing superpower: the ability to quickly grow into a screen that’s dense enough to disguise a wall or create some privacy, but still feels light and airy. Read on to learn how to use these versatile plants to make your own screen in your garden.
Pittosporum tenuifolium ‘Silver Sheen’ (top left) creates a privacy screen in Flora’s Berkeley garden
Making a pittosporum screen is easy and rewarding. Here are some tips for growing your screen:
Pittosporums are tolerant of many soil types, including clay.
Choose a variety that will get at least as big as the screen you wish to have. This is why Pittosporum tenuifolium is an excellent choice for screens.
Taller varieties (15ft+) are fast-growing, up to three feet per year under ideal conditions.
Pittosporums prefer full sun, but will also grow in part shade. Giving them six hours or more of direct sun will make a nice full screen. You’ll need at least four hours of sun or your screen will lose density.
Space your plants three feet apart.
Be sure to add planting mix during installation, mixing 50:50 with your native soil.
Mulch the surface around your new pittosporums to help retain moisture as they are established. Keep the mulch a few inches from the trunks of the trees.
Pittosporums are not particularly water-thirsty plants, but will need regular irrigation to become established and look nice and full.
Continue to fertilize during the spring through fall to get good initial growth early on and maintain a full lush screen over time.
To create an open screen that lets light through and isn’t completely solid, trim selectively with pruners.
Alternatively, to create a thicker, denser hedge, prune with a hedge trimmer, and before the plants reach full size, begin shearing them back six inches. Then allow them to grow another foot before shearing them another six inches. This encourages your hedge to be dense by the time it reaches your desired size, where it can be maintained.
Never let a screen grow more than six inches beyond its desired size or when you prune it back it will be patchy and take time to fill back in nicely.
Pittosporum tenuifolium ‘Silver Sheen’ does its job, disguising the wall of the neighboring house while maintaining a nice breezy texture.
Pittosporums naturally grow into trees or shrubs, depending on the variety. These are some of our favorite pittosporums for screens:
P. tenuifolium ‘Silver Magic’
Small variegated grey and lime green leaves with pink hints
Height 12-15ft; Width 6-8ft
P. tenuifolium ‘Silver Sheen’
Small pewter blue leaves with a metallic sheen
Height 12-15ft; Width 6-8ft
P. tenuifolium ‘Harley Botanica’
Small leaves with bright lemon lime variegation
Height 8-20ft; Width 8-10ft
P. tenuifolium ‘Wrinkled Blue’
Small ice blue leaves with wrinkled edges
Height: 8-12ft; Width 5-7ft
P. tenuifolium ‘Marjorie Channon’
Medium-sized olive green leaves with stunning white margins
Height 8-12ft; Width 6-8ft
Pittosporum tenuifolium ‘Wrinkled Blue’ (right) is heavily pruned here for a more formal-looking screen.
At Flora Grubb Gardens, our retail nursery in San Francisco, we’ll almost always have pittosporums on hand. Please email your local Flora Grubb team at sf@floragrubb.com or la@floragrubb.com for availability.
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