Otto Luyken Laurel Care

Do you want a plant that adds year-round interest to your garden? Then let us introduce you to the Otto Luyken Laurel with its glossy dark green leaves, fragrant white flowers, and small purple-black berries.

Now do not get confused with the dwarf English Laurel, as it has a more diminutive growth form. No, we are talking about the Prunus laurocerasus Otto Luyken, and you will get some helpful care tips here.

More About Otto Luyken Cherry Laurel

The Otto Luyken Cherry Laurel is a beautiful evergreen shrub with dainty flowers seen in spring. The evergreen shrub is part of the Prunus genus, including almond, plum, and peach trees.

The Cherry Laurel is a fast grower with sweet-smelling flowers that attract birds to the cherry-like fruits that turn black when fully matured. Bees, butterflies, to birds love the berries, and the plant blends in well with any form of hedge.

The shade-tolerant plant is a rapid grower ideal to use as a private shrub in your landscape setting. Still, when ingested, all parts of this plant are toxic to humans and pets. Lastly, the plant also received garden merit for its colorful flowers.

The plant grows up to 25 feet tall and 30 feet wide and originates from Asia and Europe.

Otto Luyken Laurel Plant Care

The best time to plant Prunus Laur Otto Luyken is in the fall, allowing your plant to develop a root system before winter. If you decide to plant Otto Laurel in spring, it will need more watering. You can also find the dwarf form to give a tree shape by removing lower branches as it grows taller.

Planting Prunus Laurocerasus Otto Luyken

The ideal conditions for planting dwarf Cherry Laurel or any other plants in the variety are in the garden.

It helps to provide your Otto Luyken Laurel with a hole twice the width of the root system but preferably not deeper.

You can add some compost or even topsoil when backfilling the hole. Still, do not dig the hole too deep, as you still need to see the original soil in which the shrub was planted.

Soil

These species, when it comes to Otto Luyken Cherry Laurel care, prefer well-drained soil. So, as garden plants, they thrive in fertile to a bit of acidic soil compared to other plants. If you have clay loam soil, we recommend adding that topsoil to provide drainage and prevent waterlogging, as poor soils can lead to root rot.

Lighting

To keep the evergreen leaves displaying all the time beautifully, it helps to provide your shrub with full sun, partial shade, or even full shade. But these plants grow better with more sunlight in cooler climates and with more shade in warmer areas.

Watering

The Otto Luyken Cherry Laurel enjoys moist soil compared to most other garden plants. Therefore, you may need to water deeply and often during the growing season. Still, keep the soil well drained, as your Otto Luyken is prone to root rot.

Hence, it helps to stick to checking the soil if dry between watering. Still, for non-established plants, when transplanting new plants into the ground, only give them water once a week, depending on the climate.

The Prunus laurocerasus is a drought-tolerant plant that can go without some water when established and mature.

Fertilizing

To boost your Otto Luyken English Laurel and other species in the genus, you can boost fertilizer. But we recommend using a feed made for ornamental trees. Or you can invest in an evergreen fertilizer. So, you can feed your plant in spring and early summer.

Pruning

Time matters when it comes to pruning Otto Luyken shrubs, and the best time is to aim for spring or early summer. It helps trim the evergreen shrub after it blooms and is pretty easy to give it a compact growth. Also, if it is part of a hedge, it becomes easier to prune.

Also, remove dead or diseased wood and give it a more formal shape. One thing you will love is that your plant is deer resistant when living close to the woods. At the same time, it helps to prevent weed competition by keeping the surroundings clean.

Temperature and Humidity

The Otto Luyken can thrive in loamy soil, full sun, and partial sun, but it needs proper air circulation. It can flourish in almost any environment but will not survive frost. Hence, it is essential to provide some mulch to protect the roots while it helps conserve moisture.

For overwintering, when it comes to Otto Luyken care, you can also cover it with burlap but remember to keep the air flowering to maintain health.

Propagation

The best way to propagate your Otto Luyken hedge is with stem cuttings. You will need a healthy Cherry Laurel with sterilized scissors, a plastic bag, and some soilless potting mix with a container of optional rooting hormone.

Take your scissors and cut below one of the nodes on the soft stem about six inches long. Then remove the bottom leaves, dip the stem tips you cut into rooting hormone, and place them in your potting mix in a container.

Keep the soil moist, cover your pot with plastic, and keep checking the soil. You should notice new growth in about three weeks and can then transplant it into the ground.

Otto Luyken Varieties

As with many plants, you can find other varieties available in the Cherry Laurel species. The difference between Cherry Laurel and Otto Luyken is that the latter is grown more like a hedge.

‘Schipkaensis’

The plant has an upright spreading growth with narrow, glossy dark green leaves. It grows up to ten feet tall and makes for ideal ground cover.

‘Zabeliana’

The shrub grows about four feet high but has a wide spread of up to 12 feet. It is slow growing and works well in small gardens.

Otto Luyken Laurel Disease and Pests

The hedge is a sturdy yet disease-resistant plant when kept in the correct light and growing conditions. But it can still be susceptible to aphids, scale insects, verticillium wilt, and powdery mildew.