Cherry Laurel has settled very well here in Ireland
CHERRY Laurel is in flower at present. Its flowers aren’t very showy; they are very small and numerous, are off-white in colour and are arranged in flower-heads that are held upright like mini-bottlebrushes or fingers pointing skywards as shown in the image above.
In botany, any spike-like flower-head arrangement similar to that found in Cherry Laurel with the oldest flowers at the bottom of the spike and the youngest at the top is called a raceme.
Later in the year the spiky tails that are now upright will droop over with the weight of the purplish-black, shiny globular fruits. Laurel belongs to the Cherry group, one of the many genera in the large Rose Family, so while these fruits are technically cherries, unlike other cherries they are toxic when eaten in bulk.
Cherry Laurel is not native to Ireland. Its home range is in south-east Europe, the regions bordering the Black Sea, and the Balkan peninsula from where it spreads across Asia Minor from Bulgaria to Iran and Serbia. It was introduced to Ireland many years ago as a hedge and shrubbery plant and to form game-coverts on large estates.
It did well in moist Irish soils and in shade in woodland where few other shrubs managed to survive. It did so well, in fact, that it is now naturalised in our countryside and can spread aggressively without human intervention.
Its leaves are bright dark green, large, glossy, leathery, hairless and evergreen and their margins are covered with tiny teeth. An old branch weighted down with numerous leaves may bend and touch the ground triggering it to take root and grow into a new plant.
Birds can also spread the plant by eating the cherries, flying away and depositing seed in their droppings some distance away. Consequently, self-sown plants can be found far from their parent shrub.
While found mainly as a shrub, in ideal conditions a Cherry Laurel is capable of growing into an impressive and significant tree some ten metres tall. When that happens, in autumn the ground under its branches may be slimy with the rotting remains of tens of thousands of cherries shed from the branches above.
Cherry Laurel is now found throughout Ireland and is spreading except in areas where conditions are particularly challenging for it such as the bogs in the Midlands and the wind-swept coasts along the western seaboard.
It is also a popular garden plant, hedge and shrub with several cultivars available.