Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.
Ligustrum japonicum shows on list recommendation. On ligustrum japonicum, 1 ecological invasive reports is the next japonicum fact. The banner is not the whole file — Ligustrum japonicum. on list does not replace 1 ecological invasive on ligustrum japonicum.
On ligustrum japonicum, Ligustrum japonicum also carries 2 hardiness rows for japonicum.
Use evidence on ligustrum japonicum for japonicum. Use hardiness on ligustrum japonicum for japonicum. The citations remain on Ligustrum japonicum for japonicum.
Form
tree
Mature height
~20 ft
Light
Full sun
Water need
low
Rated in
Global; Japan; Valencia, Spain / western Mediterranean; Virginia / Mid-Atlantic +1
On this lot
1. Fire evidence and conditions
Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
Virginia Cooperative Extension's publication opens with Virginia wildfire conditions, identifies its Virginia Firewise Landscaping Task Force, and labels plants native to Virginia. FireApproved publishes 306 exact source owners. Publication scope does not establish parcel suitability or current endorsement of this archived 2009 list.
2. Why this plant is relevant here
State distribution
Documented in AL, DC, DE, FL, GA, KY, LA, MD, MS, NC, NJ, OH, PA, PR, SC, TN, TX, VA, WV.
Native range
Introduced / established
3 sourced range or established records. This is not an invasive warning.
USDA hardiness
Documented minimum 5b; no upper limit is documented.
3. Legal, ecological, and broader status
Legal-list status
Seed-list status
Reported invasive here
1 ecological invasive report.
Broader regional context
Federal context
How to read this page
The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.
Native and introduced range evidence
These are exact U.S. botanical-area records from the cited range source. Native and
introduced describe biogeographic relationship, not fire performance or planting approval.
Doubtful and extinct rows stay visible but do not count as current presence.
The lossless worldwide derivative is retained once in the research corpus; object pages repeat only exact U.S. areas needed by the local lens. The JSON twin carries the same page assertions.
Plant hardiness evidence
These values describe the plant source. Your ZIP zone comes from the separate 2023 USDA
Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Whole-zone values stay whole-zone, and a single unresolved value
is not treated as a tolerance range. Different source boundaries stay separate: overlapping
statements are compared independently, while only ranges with no shared zone are called a conflict.
Source prints 6 · single-value meaning unresolved · whole zone precision · source stated
Source taxon: Ligustrum japonicum · exact match.
Source location: Cold Hardiness Zone field in the recovered selector record.
Not used for comparison: The recovered selector prints one Cold Hardiness Zone value but does not define it as a minimum threshold or a one-zone range.
Source location: PlantCharacteristics record 49821, Temperature, Minimum (°F).
Where its sources say to plant it
Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating.
They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.
Eastern United States Fire Performance Plant Selector: Landscape Zone 3 — 10–30 ft from the structure; thin vegetation, remove debris, and minimize plant massing [Fire Performance Plant Selector landscape zone] (with its avoid rating)
Tree fire-protection classification in Hito to Shinrin: ネズミモチ — Table 10-2 [tadaki-kira-1982-fire-protection-power] (with its recommendation)
The evidence
Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself
(a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or
republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.
“recommended low-flammability species (trees, garden column)”
Source wording: “especies recomendadas”
Tree fire-protection classification in Hito to Shinrin (人と森林) — Kyoritsu Shuppan; table reproduced by Kagoshima Prefecture · Hito to Shinrin (1982), Table 10-2; Kagoshima web reproduction · original sourcePrimary evidenceExpert-curatedlineage: independent (root of Japanese municipal fire-protection tree lists)
Table 10-2 prints ネズミモチ in the large fire-protection-power class. The Kagoshima reproduction says highly fire-protective trees can slow spread, promote upward dispersal of heat and smoke, and intercept flying embers.
7 cited rows from this source; its identity, lineage and tier are stated once.
Primary study Ganteaume2018: Ganteaume, A. (2018). Does plant flammability differ between leaf and litter bed scale? Role of fuel characteristics and consequences for flammability assessment. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 27, 342-352.
Shared row context: plant part leaves; device epiradiator; site Ganteaume2018-1; sampling summer.
