Is cherry laurel a good privacy hedge for Austin?

It's a really good evergreen hedge for privacy, but it's a conditional recommendation rather than a general one, because it's a little more finicky about water than the other screening plants. If you're anywhere near a creek or a river, it's perfect. If you're not, it needs an irrigation system. If you have neither creek water nor irrigation, it probably isn't a great choice for you.

How long does a cherry laurel live?

Cherry laurels are in general a short-lived tree. Twenty to thirty years is about the most you should expect out of them. That's worth knowing before you plant a whole fence line of them: a holly will give you fifty years or more, and an eastern red cedar sixty to eighty on a site that actually suits it. It doesn't make cherry laurel a bad plant. It makes it a different purchase, with a replacement built into it.

Why is my cherry laurel turning yellow on the inside?

If a cherry laurel isn't getting the irrigation it needs, or isn't in a good riparian area, the first symptom you'll see is interior foliage turning yellow and dropping. That's usually your first cue that it's experiencing some heat and drought stress. It's an early warning rather than a verdict, and there's no watering schedule that answers it. What the plant needs depends on the condition it's in, the time of year, and what the weather is doing that year. Soil moisture has to be monitored, not calendared.

Cherry Laurel: A Good Austin Privacy Hedge, If You Have the Water

Q: Should I prune cherry laurel as a hedge or let it grow into a tree?

Either is legitimate and pruning is what decides it. A lot of people prune them like hedges and keep them kind of small as a permanent evergreen hedge. If you allow them to grow, one will develop a canopy like a small tree.

Q: What container size should I buy a cherry laurel in?

Screening and ornamental stock is typically only available in 30-gallon containers and smaller, with 15 gallon the most common size. If you do go bigger, screening species run shorter than shade trees at the same container size. A cherry laurel is around eight feet out of either a 45 or a 65 gallon container. The case for going up is a specific height: an evergreen hedge that has to finish taller than a six-foot privacy fence.

Cherry laurel makes a really good evergreen hedge for privacy, and in Austin the whole decision comes down to where its water is going to come from. Anywhere near a creek or a river, it’s perfect. With a real irrigation system, it’s fine. With neither of those, it probably isn’t a great choice for you.

The other thing to know before you buy a fence line of them: cherry laurels are in general a short-lived tree. Twenty to thirty years is about the most you should expect out of them. That doesn’t make it a bad plant. It makes it a different purchase: a screen with a replacement cycle built into it, rather than a fixture.

At a Glance


What it’s for	Evergreen screening and privacy
Lifespan here	20–30 years is about the most you should expect
Form	Hedge if you prune it; a small tree with a canopy if you let it go
Height, unpruned	20 ft in the small-tree form, though nearby competition and growing conditions will affect that considerably
Spread	Upright
Site	Creek or river frontage → perfect · real irrigation → fine · neither → don’t
First sign of trouble	Interior foliage turning yellow and dropping
Wildlife	Berries are good for the birds. Spring flowers smell nice, but they’re small and brief

Where Cherry Laurel Works in Central Texas, and Where It Doesn’t

Cherry laurel is a little more finicky about water than the other screening plants, and that one trait splits the recommendation three ways:

Anywhere near a creek or a river (a riparian site), it’s perfect. No argument, plant it.
Not near water, but you have a real irrigation system? It’s fine. It has to be a zone that actually reaches the plants and actually runs, not one that got turned off when the house changed hands.
Neither one? It probably isn’t a great choice for you. Plant something else.

There’s an east–west pattern behind that here: the plants that want creek water (cherry laurel and Mexican plum among them) are asking for something a yard either has or doesn’t.

If you land on that third branch and still want an evergreen screen, there are options that don’t run on water. Where a hillside already supplies the elevation and you don’t actually need height, Texas mountain laurel is excellent for long-term durability. Arizona cypress wants more sun and heat and mostly cares about drainage. Hollies (Eagleston, Nellie Stevens, Burford, Sky Pencil) are hardy just about anywhere here.

Hedge or Small Tree? Pruning Decides

A lot of people prune them like hedges and keep them kind of small as a permanent evergreen hedge. That’s a perfectly good version of the plant. If instead you allow them to grow, one will develop a canopy like a small tree. Same plant, different result. Left alone it runs to twenty feet, comfortably above a six-foot privacy fence, so the unsheared version is still doing the screening job, though nearby competition and growing conditions affect that considerably. The same plant down in a river bottom will outgrow one on a rocky slope.

The hedge version is a standing commitment, not a one-time cut. Somebody has to keep holding the plant at the height you picked. That can be you, and for plenty of people it is. It can also be us. We do hedge pruning maintenance on established hedges and screens.

How Long a Cherry Laurel Lasts

A healthy evergreen hedge looks permanent, and this one isn’t. Twenty to thirty years is about the most you should expect out of a cherry laurel. Set that against the rest of the screening set: a holly will give you fifty years or more, and an eastern red cedar sixty to eighty on a site that actually suits it. Hollies are the safest bet across a range of sites; the cedar lives longest when the site is right.

So a cherry laurel fence line isn’t a permanent installation. It looks great for a while, you’re going to cut it down, and it isn’t going to be dangerous or hazardous when that day comes. Then you regrow a new one, and it comes back quick. You lose a little bit, and that is disappointing, but you can plan for it.

That goes for any privacy planting, not just this one. Thinking you’re going to make a few plantings today and have it be perfect for thirty straight years is farce. In that kind of stretch, if you planted twenty plants, you should expect one or more of them to have died, for one reason or another. So plant a variety of species, because you don’t want the wrong environmental or pest problem to roll through and wipe out everything you have. You need durability through species variation. It’s the owner’s call, though, not a rule: plenty of people want the clean modern look of a monoculture hedge and have the budget for it, and if that’s what you’re after I’d rather help you get the best version of it than talk you out of it.

The First Thing You’ll See Go Wrong

If a cherry laurel isn’t getting the irrigation it needs, or isn’t in a good riparian area, the first symptom you’ll see is interior foliage turning yellow and dropping. Not the outside of the plant. The inside. That’s usually your first cue that it’s experiencing some heat and drought stress.

It’s an early symptom and you can see it from the back door, no ladder and no diagnosis required. The interior of a plant is where trouble shows up first. It’s the same reason we look for interior growth when we’re judging a canopy from underneath.

What you do about it is get more water to the plant and keep watching the interior, because that’s the part that reports first. There’s no schedule I can hand you: what it needs depends on the condition it’s in, the time of year, and what the weather is doing that particular year, so soil moisture gets monitored, not calendared. There’s more on that in how much and when to water your trees.

If it keeps thinning from the inside anyway, the yellowing has stopped being a watering question and turned into a siting one. The question is whether this species belongs on this site at all, and that’s better settled before the plant goes in the ground than after.

How You Buy One

Screening stock doesn’t work the way shade-tree stock does. Privacy and ornamental species are typically only available in 30-gallon containers and smaller, and fifteen gallon is the most common size. If you do go bigger, screening species run shorter than shade trees at the same container size. A cherry laurel comes in around eight feet out of either a 45 or a 65 gallon container. The reason to pay up is a specific one: an evergreen hedge that has to finish taller than a six-foot privacy fence.

Expect a little less precision on the height than you’d get with a shade tree, too. We favor tree quality over size when we’re picking, and if an exact height matters to you, that’s worth telling us in advance.

You also don’t pick the individual plant off a lot. There’s no nursery you come walk. An arborist meets you at the property, helps decide the appropriate size and species for your needs and your site, and then hand selects the plants against what the site actually requires. On a species this conditional, that visit is the whole ballgame. The difference between the creek-frontage version of this plant and the dry-yard version isn’t something you can see in a container. More on how that works on the tree planting page.

Our Take

I’m not going to oversell this one. It’s not a super ornamental plant. The flowers smell nice in the spring but they don’t last very long and they’re very small. What it is, is a pretty evergreen bush that is native and has a lot of value to the wildlife, and a really good evergreen hedge for privacy on the right site. It isn’t a specimen tree and it isn’t a permanent fixture.

If you have creek water or irrigation, it earns its place. If you don’t, there are other things on the screening list that will suit you better, and I’d rather point you at one of those than sell you a hedge that starts yellowing from the inside.

If you’re working out what belongs along a fence line and you want somebody to look at the actual site before anything gets planted, that’s a short conversation and we’re glad to have it. Call (512) 996-9100 or get in touch.

More Trees for Central Texas

Texas mountain laurel: durable, slow, and the pick where a hillside already gives you the height
Arizona cypress: the other evergreen screen, and the one that cares about drainage more than water
The Central Texas Field Guide: every species we’ve written up, grouped by what you want the tree to do