Southern Wax Myrtle

Light Needs

Partial Sun to Full Sun

(5+ Hours Direct Sun)

Mature Height

15 Feet

Mature Spread

10-15 Feet

Growing Zones

7 to 11

Southern Wax Myrtle is a fast-growing native evergreen that handles wet soil, dry stretches, salt, wind, and urban exposure. Its narrow olive-green leaves release a bayberry scent when crushed, and female plants can carry gray-blue waxy berries in fall and winter when a male plant is nearby for pollination. Botanically known as Myrica cerifera, also listed as Morella cerifera, this shrub can be grown as a dense hedge or limbed up into a small multi-trunk tree. We use it for property lines and utility areas to provide coverage that looks natural.

This broadleaf evergreen is native from New Jersey south through the Southeast and into Central America and the Caribbean, often occurring near moist woods, stream banks, marshes, and coastal areas. It usually grows 10–20 feet tall in landscapes, though it can be kept shorter with pruning. The berries are eaten by songbirds, especially in fall and winter, and the plant also hosts red-banded hairstreak butterflies. Use it as a privacy screen, coastal windbreak, pond-edge planting, erosion-control shrub, or a loose native hedge for birds and cover.

Southern Wax Myrtle Care

Plant Southern Wax Myrtle in full sun to partial shade, with fuller growth and better screening in brighter light. It adapts to sandy, loamy, clay, poor, moist, occasionally wet, or occasionally dry soils once established. Slightly acidic to neutral soil is ideal, roughly pH 5.5–7.2, though it tolerates a range of coastal and urban soil conditions.

Water regularly during the first growing season so the root system settles in before dry or flooded periods. Once established, water during prolonged drought, or when leaves dull and the soil is dry several inches down. Feed lightly in early spring only if growth is weak. It will stay evergreen in mild winters but may drop leaves after extreme cold in colder parts of its range.

Prune in late winter to shape, reduce height, or train it into a small tree by removing lower limbs. If you want berries, avoid heavy pruning of older stems because fruit forms on previous-season wood. Remove root suckers when a clean hedge or tree form is desired, or allow them to fill in for wildlife cover and thicker screening.

Southern Wax Myrtle Spacing

Space Southern Wax Myrtle 8–10 feet apart for a natural privacy screen, or 5–6 feet apart for a denser clipped hedge. For containers, use a 20–24 inch pot only for a young plant, then move it into the ground as it develops.

In the landscape, combine it with sweetspire for moist-soil flowering, buttonbush for wetter native plantings, and liriope for low evergreen texture at the front. For a container close to the planting, use begonias and bacopa for seasonal color without competing with the shrub’s roots.

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