Sunshine® Privet

Gold is one of the very best colors to use in the garden. It brings warmth and brightness, blends perfectly with all the normal green foliage in the garden, and highlights most flower colors as well. In warmer areas you can’t go wrong when you want to introduce some gold, than planting the Sunshine Privet, also called Ligustrum, in your garden. This modest plant never exceeds 6 feet tall, but it spread about 4 feet wide, so for a hedge you can space plants 3 or ever 4 feet apart, saving on how many you need to plant.

Imagine a ribbon of gold winding along the pathway to your home, or borders edged in low golden hedges. How about a wall of gold separating one part of your garden from another, or marking the boundary? These effects are easy to achieve with the Sunshine Privet. Just plant them, water when young, and clip from time to time. It’s that easy. Place plants among the shrubs in the foundation planting around your home. Leave them natural, or clip them into cones, balls or columns, depending on the style of your planting. This versatile shrub is so useful you won’t be able to get enough of it.

Growing Sunshine Privet Shrubs

The Sunshine Privet is a small evergreen shrub, with glossy leaves about 1 inch long, that are a uniform golden yellow all year round. Not blotchy, not turning dull green in summer, just golden beauty all the time. Now you may have some reservations about privet plants, because some have got a bad name for creating allergies, or for spreading into natural areas. Forget all that with the Sunshine Privet. It never flowers, so no allergies and no seeds. You won’t be sneezing in spring from this plant, and you won’t see it invading surrounding areas either. Be completely confident, this is not an invasive or ‘problem’ privet bush.

Planting and Initial Care

Grow the Sunshine Privet in full sun for the richest golden coloring. It will also grow well in shade, but there the foliage will be an attractive lime-green, rather than bright gold. Lime-green is also a fashionable garden color, so if you have some shade, just go with it, and enjoy the more muted tones. This tough and reliable plant will grow in almost any kind of soil, from sand to clay, doing well in exactly those heavy soils that many other plants don’t enjoy too much. Just avoid spots where the soil is always saturated with water. Water new plants regularly, about once a week during summer, to develop strong, deep roots. These are your future insurance against drought, giving you tough, vigorous plants able to easily handle adverse conditions of heat and drought.

Uses in Your Garden

The Sunshine Privet can be used in many ways around the garden. Plant unclipped bushes among flowering shrubs in large beds, for all-year brightness and interest. They will grow no more than 6 feet tall, and 3 or 4 feet wide, so they won’t take over, and they will leave lots of space for other shrubs. Use it for a hedge between 3 and 6 feet tall, by planting 2½ to 3 feet apart, and clipping once or twice a year. If you see any plain-green branches sprouting, trace them to their source and cut them cleanly out, or the more vigorous green plant will take over.

History and Origins of the Sunshine Privet

The Chinese Privet (Ligustrum sinense), is a shrub native to China, Taiwan and Vietnam, but today it grows in many countries, including the southern United States. The golden form is a much ‘tamer’, and so much more attractive, without flowers or berries, yet it is still a vigorous grower, trouble-free and pest and disease free too.

The Sunshine Privet must be grown from stem pieces taken from mature plants, so that every plant grown is a perfect copy. Seedling plants will not be gold, but green, vigorous and problems, so never plant cheap seedlings – stick to the best. Our limited stock is being snapped up by gardeners building golden walls around their homes, so order now, while we still have the plants to satisfy your needs.