Variegated Pittosporum

Pittosporum tobira ‘Variegata’

Plant Details

USDA Plant Hardiness Zones: 8a-11 (7b?) Find Your Zone

Plant Type: Evergreen Flowering Shrub

Height at Maturity: 4-8′ depending on pruning

Width at Maturity: 5-8′ depending on pruning

Spacing: 4-5′ for solid hedges; 12′ or more for space between plants

Growth Habit / Form: Broad, Bushy, Dense, Mounding, Upright

Growth Rate: Moderate to Fast, slower in shade

Flower Color: White

Flower Size: Small, inconspicuous against foliage

Flowering Period: Mid Spring

Flower Type: Single

Fragrant Flowers: Yes

Foliage Color: Mint Green, Creamy White

Fragrant Foliage: No

Berries: No

Berry Color: NA

Sun Needs: Full to Mostly Sun. All Day Filtered Sun, Morning Sun With Afternoon Shade. Morning Shade with Afternoon Sun

Water Needs: Very Low when established

Soil Type: Clay (Amended), Loam, Sandy, Silty

Soil Moisture / Drainage: Well Drained Moist to Dry

Soil pH: 5.5 – 7.0 (Acid to Neutral)

Maintenance / Care: Very Low

Attracts: Visual Attention

Resistances: Deer – more info, Disease, Drought, Dry Soil, Heat, Insect

Description

Variegated Pittosporum, also known as Japanese Mock Orange, is a handsome, dense and mounding evergreen shrub featuring attractive, variegated creamy white and light grayish blue-green foliage. The flowers go unnoticed against the foliage, however are pleasantly fragrant, perfuming your yard for weeks during spring with the sweet smell of orange blossoms. Trims well for hedges and can be trained to form a small or bonsai. Grows in full sun and part shade.

Landscape & Garden Uses

Growing in a rounded mound 4 to 8 feet tall and 6 to 8 feet wide (depending on pruning), the Variegated Pittosporum can be grown as a large shrub or small tree. As a shrub, its dense foliage makes it ideal for use as an evergreen hedge or background, or to frame corners or fill voids between widely-spaced windows in home foundation plantings. As it grows, which it does rather quickly, lower branches can be removed to desired height and you have a small focal point specimen tree for use in sunny to partially shaded landscape borders and home foundation plantings. Excellent for bonsai. A fine addition to fragrance gardens, white theme gardens, rock gardens, tropical look gardens and the Xeriscape (low water needs).

Suggested Spacing: 5 feet apart for a solid hedge; 12 feet or more apart for space between plants

Note: For our customers who live and garden North of USDA Cold Hardiness Zone 8a, where this Pittosporum variety is not reliably winter hardy, you’ll be happy to know it can be grown in containers that can be brought indoors during winter and placed back outside when temperatures warm up in spring.

Growing Preferences

Variegated Pittosporum is easy to grow in most any moist but well-drained loose soil and full sun to partial shade. It will need some water while establishing itself however is exceptionally drought tolerant when established. No pruning is necessary, however plants can be pruned to shape or control size, as a formal hedge, or lower branches can be removed to form a very attractive small tree.

Note: For helpful advice from our experts, click on the Planting & Care tab above on desktop computer monitors or below on mobile devices

Plant Long & Prosper!

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What a beautiful and healthy plant you sent me.—————————-Hi Lelia, Thanks so much for taking the time to provide your review of the Variegated Pittosporum. We are so glad you are pleased and we hope you enjoy it for years to come! 🙂 Thanks for the kind words!
Beth Steele | Wilson Bros Gardens