Birds eat the small, black fruit and deposit the seeds everywhere.
Many other Ligustrum species, however, make well-mannered landscape plants. Privets are most often grown as hedge plants because they are so easy to grow. All have abundant, showy clusters of very sweet smelling, white flowers in late spring. Clipped hedges bear fewer flowers, since shearing removes most of the flower-bearing branches. The foliage is 2 to 4 inches long and rather leathery.