Florida Bully

Size, growth and what to expect

Florida bully grows slowly, about a foot a year in our growth estimator. It is a low, much-branched shrub, and some plants reach 15 feet. Its leaves are a third of an inch to 2 inches long, dark green and shiny, with a net of fine veins.

Clusters of tiny white flowers open from April to June. The fruit is a purplish black berry less than a third of an inch long, small for a buckthorn, and birds eat it.

It grows wild from South Carolina through Florida south to Broward County, and west along the Gulf coast to Louisiana. Its homes are floodplain forests, low pine woods and savannas, and glades. In the far south of Florida it gives way to the Everglades bully, a form with hairy leaves that grows in pine rocklands and marl prairies. NatureServe ranks it critically imperiled in Alabama and Mississippi, and it may be gone from Louisiana.

How to grow Florida Bully

Florida bully grows in full sun or light shade. It wants a moist to wet soil, sandy or over limestone, neutral to alkaline. It does not stand long droughts or salty wind. Set plants 8 feet apart and keep them 8 feet from a wall. At its size it can go within 15 feet of overhead wires.

Saplings ship bare-root or potted. Plant them dormant, from leaf fall until bud swell, in a hole wider than the roots and no deeper. Set the crown at the soil line, put the native soil back in, and keep the mulch clear of the stems. Sow it as gum bumelia is sown. Clean the seed from fruit picked as soon as it turns purplish black, and chill it damp in the refrigerator for 60 days. Sow it in spring under a light cover of soil.

Water weekly through the first two summers and in any dry spell after that. Wear gloves when you prune, since the branches carry thorns.

Each flower carries both male and female parts, and most buckthorns can pollinate themselves, so a single plant can set fruit. The larvae of the bumelia borer, a longhorn beetle, can tunnel into the base of buckthorn stems.