Other Names:  Colorado Redcedar

Description:

A narrowly columnar evergreen shrub, with soft textured silvery-blue needle-like foliage and showy blue berries, a good compact choice for adding a vertical dimension to difficult landscape situations, makes a great tall evergreen hedge

Ornamental Features

Welch Juniper is a dwarf conifer which is primarily valued in the landscape or garden for its rigidly columnar form. It has attractive blue evergreen foliage. The scale-like sprays of foliage are highly ornamental and remain blue throughout the winter. It produces silvery blue berries from late spring to late winter.

Landscape Attributes

Welch Juniper is a multi-stemmed evergreen shrub with a narrowly upright and columnar growth habit. It lends an extremely fine and delicate texture to the landscape composition which can make it a great accent feature on this basis alone.

This is a relatively low maintenance shrub, and is best pruned in late winter once the threat of extreme cold has passed. Deer don't particularly care for this plant and will usually leave it alone in favor of tastier treats. It has no significant negative characteristics.

Welch Juniper is recommended for the following landscape applications;

• Accent
• Vertical Accent
• Hedges/Screening
• General Garden Use

Planting & Growing

Welch Juniper will grow to be about 9 feet tall at maturity, with a spread of 4 feet. It tends to be a little leggy, with a typical clearance of 2 feet from the ground, and is suitable for planting under power lines. It grows at a slow rate, and under ideal conditions can be expected to live for 70 years or more.

This shrub should only be grown in full sunlight. It is very adaptable to both dry and moist growing conditions, but will not tolerate any standing water. It is considered to be drought-tolerant, and thus makes an ideal choice for xeriscaping or the moisture-conserving landscape. It is not particular as to soil type or pH. It is somewhat tolerant of urban pollution. This is a selection of a native North American species.