Wax Myrtle
Morella cerifera
A fast, tough native evergreen for screens and informal hedges, with pleasantly aromatic leaves and waxy berries birds love, and few pests. It thrives at the beach, taking drought, sand, wind and salt spray, and grows in sun or part shade, wet ground or dry. Hard cold browns the leaves, and alkaline soil yellows them.
- Mature size
- 17 × 17 ft
- 5.5 × 5.5 m, tall × wide
- Hardiness
- Zones 7a–9b
- USDA
- Sun
- Full sun to part shade
- Water
- Medium to wet
Wax Myrtle at its mature size
A mature Wax Myrtle grows 15 to 20 feet tall and just as 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: Clemson Extension.
Through the year
What Wax Myrtle looks like month by month in a typical zone 6–7 garden.
In leaf · Year-round
Dense narrow olive-green leaves.
Growing Wax Myrtle
- Grows well in
- The Southeast.
- Growth rate
- Fast
- Good for
- Privacy screen, hedge, shade garden, rain garden, deer resistant, fragrant, and fast growing
- Leaves
- Evergreen
- Native to
- Southeastern United States and Caribbean
Spacing for a hedge
VeraScape spaces plants so their grown canopies just touch. For Wax Myrtle, that’s about 17 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 Wax Myrtle in your yard before you dig
Visualize it at its true size, alongside the rest of your design.