If you can’t grow a Toyon Tree on your site then you probably are living in a nuclear wasteland. In my experience, it is about as bulletproof as they come. Toyon takes very little water, but seems to accept more than you think it should. The leaves are dark green and long lasting, providing background character and counteracting the “California Native Gardens are ugly and dormant in the summer” myth. Toyon takes full blasting sun as well as a considerable amount of shade, use it on the North side of your house or plant a million of them along your property line as a hedge. The berries are cheerful in the winter and brighten up cold Christmas days. The variety you see here is ‘Davis Gold’ and it has yellow berries rather than red ones. We opted for yellow since it matches our front door.

Toyon can be infected by fire blight from nearby Bradford Pears. Copper fungicides are effective in treating it— the ones you see here had a fairly bad infection in the late summer but seem to have survived.

Calscape