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Heteromeles arbutifolia 'Davis Gold' (Davis Gold Toyon) - A yellow-orange berried selection of the California native evergreen shrub that typically has red berries. Like the species this plant can grow to be a dense plant to 10 feet tall and 8 feet wide but older plants can be taller and wider and even trained into small trees. It has leathery 2-4-inch-long oblong leaves that are serrated along the margins and many small white mildly fragrant flowers in terminal clusters in late spring to early summer that produce pea sized berries in the winter that are bright yellow with an orange blush. Plant in full sun to partial shade. It is drought tolerant after the first few years, but tolerates some water if drainage is good. Hardy to just below 0° F and useful down into USDA Zone 8. Like the red berried form this plant would make a great specimen or large hedge plant used alone or mixed with Coffeeberry and Ceanothus and this selection is also thought to be more disease resistant and easier to vegetatively propagate than the typically seed grown species. It, like the species, would also be somewhat fire resistant, particularly if irrigated occasionally during spring and summer, which unlike many native plants, Toyon can tolerate so long as soil is allowed to dry between waterings. This plant adds a great color bright color to the winter garden and bees and butterflies are attracted to the flowers and birds somewhat to the fruit.
For more information about the species, see our listing Heteromeles arbutifolia. This selection is often listed as a cultivar of Heteromeles arbutifolia var. cerina, an unresolved name for a form of Toyon that naturally has yellow berries and was originally described by Willis Jepson in 1925 as Photinia arbutifolia var. cerina in his "A Manual of the Flowering Plants of California". The variety cerina was listed as growing from San Luis Obispo County north to Monterey County but this is not where the cultivar 'Davis Gold' originated. It has been reported as being a grown from seed collected in 1962 on Santa Catalina Island and later introduced into the trade by Charles Filmer, a UC Davis grad student who noted that this plant on the UC Davis campus, planted near the Administration Building, was easier to propagate vegetatively than others and so named it 'Davis Gold'. We have grown this cultivar since 2015.
The information displayed on this page about Heteromeles arbutifolia 'Davis Gold' is based on the research we have conducted about it in our nursery library as well as from information provided by reliable online resources. We also include our own observations made about this plant as it grows in the nursery gardens and other gardens visited, as well how the crops of this plant have performed in the containers in our nursery field. We will also incorporate comments that we have received from others and welcome hearing from anyone with information about this plant, particularly if it includes cultural information that will aid others to better grow it.
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