Lanceleaf Buckthorn

Size, growth and what to expect

No source rates its growth, so our growth estimator treats it as a medium grower, like our Carolina buckthorn, about a foot and a half a year. It makes an upright shrub of 3 to 15 feet, with smooth gray bark and glossy, finely toothed leaves 1 to 3 inches long.

Small greenish yellow flowers open from April to June in clusters of two to four along the twigs, and small bees and flies carry their pollen. The fruit turns from green to red and then shiny black, a round drupe about a quarter inch across. Brown thrashers and other birds eat it.

It grows wild from Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin west to South Dakota and south to Alabama and Texas. Its homes are limestone glades, rocky ledges, thinly wooded bluffs, hill prairies, seeps and bottomland thickets. It is rare at the edges of its range, and NatureServe ranks it critically imperiled in Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

How to grow Lanceleaf Buckthorn

Lanceleaf buckthorn grows in full sun or part shade, in a moist to somewhat dry soil. It does best in slightly alkaline soil over limestone, whether clay loam or rocky. 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 the cleaned seed outdoors in fall, so winter can chill it. Seed kept until spring needs damp cold first, so give it 30 to 60 days in the refrigerator, as Carolina buckthorn seed gets.

Water weekly through the first summer and in dry spells until it is established. Buckthorn leaves and bark are toxic, so most mammals leave it alone. Deer still browse the twigs and rabbits gnaw the bark in winter, so cage young plants.

Its small flowers are mostly male or female, and sources disagree on whether one plant bears both kinds, so plant several seedlings if you want fruit. The larvae of two tiny moths mine its leaves and an aphid feeds on it, though such damage is seldom recorded.