Skip Laurel
Prunus laurocerasus ‘Schipkaensis’ · an upright cherry laurel for hedges
A fast, upright evergreen with glossy leaves and fragrant white spring flowers, a favourite for narrow privacy hedges and screens, and deer usually pass it by. It takes pollution, pruning and shade. It needs regular water in hot summers and gets bare at the base with age, so plant lower shrubs in front.
- Mature size
- 12 × 6 ft
- 4 × 1.8 m, tall × wide
- Hardiness
- Zones 6a–9b
- USDA
- Sun
- Full sun to part shade
- Water
- Medium to moist
- Blooms
- Apr
Skip Laurel at its mature size
A mature Skip Laurel grows to about 12 ft tall and 6 ft wide, taller than most people.
Drawn to scale beside a 5 ft 9 in person. With VeraScape, you see it at this size in your own yard.
Typical mature size, unpruned. Sources: NC State Extension, The Tree Center.
Through the year
What Skip Laurel looks like month by month in a typical zone 6–7 garden.
In leaf · May–Mar
Glossy dark green leathery leaves.
In flower · Apr
Short upright candles of creamy white flowers among the leaves.
Photos
Growing Skip Laurel
- Grows well in
- The Northeast, the Southeast, and the Pacific Northwest.
- Growth rate
- Medium
- Good for
- Privacy screen, hedge, specimen, deer resistant, and fragrant
- Leaves
- Evergreen
- Native to
- Southeastern Europe and Southwestern Asia
Spacing for a hedge
VeraScape spaces plants so their grown canopies just touch. For Skip Laurel, that’s about 6 ft apart, center to center.
Place a row in your own yard and VeraScape spaces them at their mature width, so you can see whether they’ll crowd the walk.
See Skip Laurel in your yard before you dig
Visualize it at its true size, alongside the rest of your design.
Other cherry laurels
Otto Luyken Cherry Laurel
Bright 'N Tight Carolina Laurel
Skip LaurelAll drawn to the same scale.