Wax Myrtle

If you live in the coastal southeast, chances are good you have some Wax Myrtle growing nearby. Also known as Southern Bayberry, this pleasant-smelling native shrub is an easy-care, fast-growing, adaptable choice for landscaping, and one of the first plants to move in and colonize areas cleared by wildfire or other methods.

Tree-formed Wax Myrtle. Note the extensive sucker growth around the base that must be trimmed back each year.

Wax Myrtle (Morella cerifera syn. Myrica cerifera) is native to the southeastern U.S., generally grown in zones 7 - 10. In colder areas, it is replaced by its cousin Northern Bayberry (Morella pensylvanica). Wax Myrtle is a large evergreen shrub, growing as high as 30 feet in the right conditions. It takes well to pruning and is frequently used as a screening hedge or trimmed to tree form, like the one shown above. It's very fast-growing, putting on as much as 5 feet a year, and tolerant of drought once established. It also tolerates salt spray, making it a popular choice in beachside communities.

Wax Myrtle is dioecious, meaning there are separate male and female plants. They flower in the spring with multiple catkins along the stems at the base of the leaves. If males and females are close enough together for pollination to occur, the female plants develop waxy blue-gray berries in the fall. Those berries were prized by early settlers; the berries were boiled and the wax skimmed to create sweet-smelling candles. (Want to try it yourself? Get a great walk-through here.)

Wax Myrtle is a great choice in a wildlife garden. The waxy berries are popular with songbirds, and the thick foliage provides shelter for many creatures. The leaves are also a host plant for multiple species of moths and several hairstreak butterflies. Here at MOSI Outside, we regularly use wax myrtle for Polyphemus Moth rearing, and have multiple specimens of this shrub growing around the property.