Pyrancantha or cotoneaster?

[lookbettertomorow]

Hello everyone, which gives the best display trained as espalier? Looking to plant three colours, red, orange and yellow over a large wall, so they need to grow 3 meters each, ish

[Jay22]

Pyracantha for me, although it is rather prickly!!

[Greenleaves]

Pyracantha for me to but not if you have young children

[cheops]

Both are fantastic for bees in early summer so choose either.

[DannyK]

Pyracantha plus some heavy gauntlets.

[happyhumph]

Pyracantha has beautiful berries but really really spikey - can really hurt - think it's recommended as an anti theft plant! So if you have children or inquisitive pets think carefully - I really like it but will stay with my cotoneaster horizontalis as sometimes I think my children are on a mission to injure themselves in creative ways

[mrsbusy]

I hate pyracantha and we have quite a lot. mrbusy is allergic to it so I get the honour of pruning the stuff. If you don't pick up every bit of clippings the vicious thorns get picked up on the soles of gummies and crocs. if I get stabbed by a thorn it hurts a long time. And it gets some disease the name escapes me but the berries look black and blighted on some of the shrubs. On the other other hand we have a magnificent cotoneaster opposite the kitchen window; it is graceful and well behaved; the berries stay on nearly all winter until the blackbirds get desperate; it is easy to prune and the clippings are soft and harmless. If I could - I would grub up the main pyracantha hedge and replace with something nice! But I would have to do it!!

[WendyC]

I don't recall seeing any cotoneaster berries other than red. If you want the range of colours you'll have to go with pyracantha. Another thought is that I think cotoneaster are more disease resistant that pyracantha. I had one and it always ended up with some virus on its leaves. Now you are really confused!

[DannyK]

I think the disease mrsbusy is thinking of is fireblight. It hits both pyracantha, cotoneaster, apples, pears and more!

https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=160

[mothhawk]

Pyrocantha needs a sunny spot. I tried growing it in my north facing garden, and while it covered the fence well as an espalier, it rarely had more than three bunches of berries and they were pathetically small. The cotoneaster I had, on the other hand, flowered and fruited well, but in the end it got so smothered every year with woolly aphids that I dug it out.

[lookbettertomorow]

Thanks for your replies, have a photo of a house covered in an Orange one, someone said cotoneaster only come in red o I assume it's a pyrancantha, wish I could load the pic grrr

[bramble]

I have had Cotoneaster growing on north and south facing walls and never had a problem with it producing berries.
Make sure you want to leave it thre for ever because you will never dig it out if you chnge your mind. When it becomes established the roots are absolute thugs.