Growing Oleander: The Complete Guide
Oleanders are beautiful, large, flowering shrubs that are perfect for screening and privacy. Tough and drought-resistant, they typically grow in warmer regions; however, there are also winter-hardy varieties. Learn more about planting, growing, and caring for oleanders.
About Oleander
Oleander (Nerium oleander) is a beautiful ornamental shrub with attractive star-shaped flowers. It can have a shrubby, open-growth form or be trained into a small single or multi-trunked tree. It’s also called Rose Bay or Rose Laurel.
These shrubs are drought tolerant, deer resistant, and do well in salt spray. They’re a relatively rapid-growing flowering shrub, often putting on 2 feet per year, and are hardy in USDA zones 8 to 10. However, there are also more cold-hardy varieties (see below). An early spring cold snap can damage oleander, so protect it with 2 to 5 inches of mulch.
Oleanders bloom from late spring through late summer, and they have loads of five-petaled flowers in pink, white, red, magenta, and salmon. Their foliage is mostly dark green, frequently with a pale stripe down the center. The leaves are spear-shaped and usually 4 to 6 inches long but less than an inch in width.
While oleanders are pretty on their own as a specimen planting, they really shine as a privacy screen. Their evergreen nature, dense foliage, and growth after pruning make them perfect for closer plantings to form a hedge, natural privacy fence, or visual block. If they’re hardy where you live, planting oleander can significantly add to your yard’s privacy and serenity while providing a boost of color.
