Weeping Alaskan Cedar： The Elegant, Shapely, Low‑Maintenance Evergreen Every Garden Needs)

Well good afternoon and welcome to Over the Vest Nurseries. I'm David Wilson and as you see I'm out here in the production area of our nurseries. This is where we grow plants and send them out to our partnering garden centers that are located all over our region, that's the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern states of the U.S. Places where you're going to find all sorts of really good plants from trees, to shrubs, to evergreens, to roses, grasses, perennials, almost any plant that you're going to want to grow reliably in our gardens here in this region, that's where you're going to find them in those garden centers. Now we spend a lot of time testing and trialing plants, we spend a lot of effort bringing you new and exciting varieties, ones that we've trialed and tested here and some that are still under the magnifying glass too. But also what we do is we bring you some varieties of plants that have stood the test of time, ones that we know have performed reliably for a very long time. Take for example this beautiful, very elegant, stately, weeping evergreen here, which is called the Alaskan Weeping Cedar. Now I use the common name deliberately because this is a plant that confuses and causes a lot of debate within botanist and taxonomist circles. They can't quite agree sometimes on the genus name that goes with this plant. Many years ago when I was a kid growing up in the industry, I learned this plant by the name that we have on our tags, it's called Camycypress Nutketensis, and this is the weeping form. But over the years, botanists have changed the names and call it various names, from Copressus through to Callitropus to Yantha Cypress, they can't seem to settle on the exact name, and for simplicity's sake we stick with the name that's commonly given in the gardening industry, and that is Camycypress. I'm kind of reminded, I think it was Shakespeare that said a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, and certainly when it comes to growing this beautiful weeping evergreen that's very definitely the case, because this is a first class plant, one that believe it or not has been around since 165 years, been around since 1860. It's a selection that was developed at a nursery in the Netherlands, Van Leeuwen Nurseries introduced this plant, and it's one that I personally have grown in several gardens, and I have a specimen in my own garden now that has been there for at least 25 years, and during that time it's received very little care and attention. One of the great things about this plant is that it's nice and vigorous, and as you see, very shapely. A lot of weeping conifers that are out there, you tend to have to tie the leader up to get them to be upright, and then have the weeping habit. But as you see from this plant, it naturally makes a nice strong leader, and from that then come all of these side branches that move gently in the breeze, and hang like curtains. It's got a nice dark green soft to the touch foliage, that is aromatic if you crush it. Some people call it an unpleasant smell, to me it certainly isn't that. But anyway, it's a very nice foliage tree that puts on about 12 to 15 inches or so a year, and in garden situations it can get as big as maybe 35 or 40 foot. In most gardens when I see it, it tends to be about 20-25 foot, by about 12 foot wide or so. And it makes a very elegant, as I mentioned, specimen, and is perfect for putting into say a lawn specimen, somewhere where you're going to be able to enjoy this beautiful habit. It's also a very valuable plant to put into the garden if you're looking to create a strategic screen. Say you're at home and you're looking out through the front of your house or through a window, perhaps even a bedroom window, and there's something out there that you'd rather screen. Well, if you get one of our plants like these, and then maneuver it into position, perhaps get somebody to help guide you from inside the house, and then you can plant this and it will make a solid screen that will then screen whatever it is that you're looking to try and not see into the future. And that's what I use the plant for in my garden. Also, what I like about this, is that this foliage is very flexible. Now that comes from the native species, Neucotensis, that grows all the way up from southern Alaska down through the northwest coast to northern California, places where they get a lot of snow. And in that sort of situation, because these branches are so flexible, you never really have to worry about them getting broken with the weight of snow or ice because they shed that because they're moving. That also means that at holiday times, I use this for making wreaths and swags. Wonderful, because I'm able to sometimes shape the tree, I prune it at the holiday times, and then use the foliage for decoration. It's also a tree that's very easy to grow, just a normal garden soil will be fine. Make sure to dig a good, generous sized hole, work in plenty of organic matter, and then water it well until it gets established. And then I recommend that you put down a good layer of mulch, that will help to conserve moisture in the ground, but also it helps to insulate the relatively shallow root system that's on there, and that helps to keep it on the moist side during the drier times of the summer. Now because it comes from the northwest and it's rainy and there's snow and so on up there, it's a plant that is not necessarily drought resistant. I never really have that much trouble with it in my garden, but when it gets really dry, I'll often drag out a hose and just let it dribble in at the base of the plant, and that seems to keep it going. It doesn't need a lot of supplementary watering once it gets established, but if you get a really dry concentrated period, it's probably good to give it a shot or two of water. Outside of that you'll find that this is a really very easy and reliable plant to grow. And one of the things I like about it, unlike some of the other cypresses of this type of family, is that I've never really seen a pest called Bagworm that you see sometimes hanging on the branches. It doesn't seem to get that, and also it seems to have a good level of resistance to a root rot called Phytophthora too. It is susceptible, but not nearly as much as some of the other varieties. Bottom line, it's a very nice hardy to zone 5 plant, so it will grow anywhere within our region, and one that I think you're going to enjoy having with this elegant, almost ghostly you might say, weeping habit. This is the wonderful, tried and true, very reliable, weeping evergreen tree, the Alaskan Weeping Cedar, or, excuse me, please, Botanists and Taxonomists, Kami Cypress, Nutkitensis, and the variety here is Glauca Pendula, Glauca because it's got a slightly bluish tint to it, and Pendula, obviously, because it hangs down. So there you are, a really good, very reliable, easy to grow plant, that I think you're going to enjoy growing for many years in your garden. This is David Wilson, enjoy your gardening, it's good for us, and good for our environment too. This is David Wilson, enjoy your gardening, it's good for us, and it's good for our environment too.