People, especially male landscape architects love to use Italian Cypress in their garden designs. Few evergreen plants have the insanely narrow, upright, bean-pole shape, without benefit of pruning. We can now add a North American native counterpart to that short list, which will be welcomed since Cupressus sempervirens (Italian Cypress) doesn’t thrive in our climate.
The photo below is Juniperus virginiana ‘Silver Spear’, a Mark Weathington selection of our native red cedar. Our original plant pictured below is now 8 years old and has never been sheared. Winter hardiness should be Zone 4-9.
Full sun? Or some shade tolerance?
At least 1/2 day sun is needed.
Sources?
Don’t know of any source yet. We have them in propagation. We just auctioned one at the Southeastern Plant Symposium auction…a great place to pick up plants like this.