Hi Benjamin,

There are several nice Thuja plicata cultivars that can fill up this place.
The question is what colour do you like and how much sun will this plant gets during the day?
If I got these answers I can help you further.

Hy,
i like nice dark green, like the original one.
Well, when it grows higher than the forsythia, which is about 2m high it will get full sun. really important for me is the trunk size, because i dont want that it pushes the forsythia and the taxus away some day:)

Benjamin

Hi Benjamin,

I saw that you live in Germany so the most Thuja plicata cultivars we grow here in The netherlands are available in your country.
I prefer for your left over space the cultivar 'Atrovirens'.
This one grows much more narrower than all the other green cultivars and the colour is nice dark shiny green.
When you cut the shape every year a bit, you can decide by yourself how broad this plant will grow.
I hope I helped you with this information.

ok,
how 'huge' will it become, when i just let it grow without
pruning?

Benjamin

The UK champion Thuja plicata 'Atrovirens' is 18m tall, with a 42cm diameter trunk.

Resin

Do you know the differences between 'Atrovirens'
and 'Excelsa'?

Benjamin

The difference with 'Excelsa' is that 'Atrovirens' has the darkest green colour of all plicata cultivars and have always a nice shine on it's leaves.
'Excelsa' is also dark green of colour but in winter it's a mat brownish green, the typical wintercolour.
'Atrovirens' have his sidebranches straight up, so it makes a thinner plant instead of 'Excelsa' which have sidebranches more horizontal and this makes a broader and open shaped plant.

Probably all these old Latin-name hedging-type Thuja plicata cultivars are mixed up in the trade and have been for a long time. I heard one grower here was calling his stock whatever the customer wanted it to be. So I wouldn't make descriptive comments based on a single clone that has been seen or purchased, as any given batch on the market may or may not be the true cultivar. Perhaps none of the clones in circulation now are the same ones that received the names originally, as far back as the first half of the 19th century.

As with other older conifer cultivars descriptions dating from the times the names were first applied may not be adequate to determine which, if any plants seen now are true-to-type.

Hi bboy,

What you are telling here are nonsens,
I'm very sure that all the hedge forms of Thuja plicata which I cultivate at my nursery are true forms and they aren't mixed up.
I have;
-'Atrovirens'
-'Excelsa'
-'Euchlora'
-'Gelderland'
-'Martin'
They are all differend from eachother.
On the other hand the situation is so that people don't care which hedge Thuja will be used in their garden.

hy coniferjoy,
could you tell me something more about your cultivars
and how the distinguish please?

Benjamin

Hi Benjamin,

I will try the give a discription of these cultivars I have;
'Atrovirens': As the name says Atro= dark, virens=green is this one the darkest green one of all hedge conifers.
The side branches are groing straight up which shows a narrow habit.
'Excelsa': is dark green in Summer and brownish green in Winter.
the side branches are growing more horizontal which shows a broader and open habit if not be cut.
'Euchlora': Is a very fast grower and have the largest scales of all these Thuja plicata hedgeforms.
The colour is lighter green then the others.
the side branches are more horizonatal growing.
'Gelderland': is a branche mutation of 'Excelsa' and the side branches are more curved, which make a nice compact habit. The colour is the same as 'Excelsa'.
'Martin': The is the latest selection found as a good hedgeconifer. The colour is dark green and the habit is between 'Atrovirens' and 'Excelsa'
I received last year a more winterhardy selection from Sweden with the name 'Sverige' and this one is more winterhard then the other cultivars I mentioned.
Normaly spoken Thuja plicata hedge conifers are not hard enough for the Scandinavian climat and instead of these they use Thuja occidentalis selections.

Thuja plicata 'Green Splendor' is suppossed to be a newer more columnar selection that stays a decent green.

'Atrovirens' that I have does have lots of side branches going straight up so I think it would take quite awhile to get wide and is suppossed to grow from old wood so you won't ruin the tree by trimming the sides if needed. Looks like they develop multiple leaders which would make it wider but you could try to cut out extra leaders to one. Has stayed a decent dark green during this harsh winter.

Thuja occidentalis 'Wintergreen' / 'Hetz Wintergreen' has the nicest form of the species with a narrow simple pyramid with one strong central leader. Not very dense for screening thou.

Thujopsis dolabrata is something rarer, very beautiful "arb", and different. The cuttings grow very slow it seems, don't know if you could get one that is bigger.

You could always move cuttings of the Forsythia and grow it elswhere to make room. Grows like a weed.

Coniferjoy

Do you grow any of the Thujopsis cultivars?
I grow the species it alsways looks good
with other conifers also I have Td var hondae
more compact in habit.However if anyone grows
Thujopsis dolabrata'Aurea'it needs full sun
I have one here also have Thuja plicata and
occidentalis however my T occidentalis has
grown very well this year and they are much
slower than T plicata.I have a few cultivars
of T occidentalis and T plicata.

Hi Blue yew,

I grow several Thujopsis
-the specie Thujopsis dolobrata
'Altissima'
'Aurea'
'Cristata'
var. hondae (also spelled var. hondai)
-'Nana'
'Variegata'
The 'Aurea' needs full sun to keep it's nice golden yellow colour.
There are also Thuja occidentalis cultivars which grows pretty fast like 'Brabant' and 'Giganteoides'.

Hello Conifer joy

I have a T d cristata got it from Edwin Smits Nursery
in Holland.The plant in also grown in America anyone
in the USA grow Thujopsis dolabrata cristata???

>What you are telling here are nonsensAssuming that every time you get a plant with a cultivar name on it you have acquired the true item, to be used as a basis for describing the true item to others is a mistake. Your plants all appearing different from one another does not establish that each is correctly identified.

With old Latin name cultivars like 'Atrovirens' and 'Excelsa' too much time has elapsed to be able to determine which, if any plants in commerce today are the original introductions. Only where full and precise original descriptions, diagnostically useful photographs, documentation linking a stock being produced to the original specimen or perhaps some other kind of solid evidence is available can true-to-nameness be demonstrated.

Old cultivars not uniquely distinctive have a high likelihood of having been replaced or augmented by multiple subsequent independent introductions having been put on the market under the same name. While there is a tendency to differentiate introductions with new names (whether the introduction is really a strong departure from what is already available or not) there is also a tendency to trade on the success of an existing familiar and established name. Sometimes introducers will think they do have the same item, even though it arose in their own seed beds or is otherwise clearly of different origin than the original introduction. In this instance it would seem be a matter of, in effect interpreting the cultivar as a seed strain, cultivar group or other broader category than a clone.

Hi all. Has anybody ever created a cultivar herbarium,for conifers or other plants? T.

Cultivars do get recorded in herbaria along with specimens of wild species.

bboy,

Most of these Thuja plicata cultivars are from Europe, so the chance is bigger that I have the thrue forms than People elswhere on the world.
I have all these cultivars I mentioned standing together in my Pinetum which is my living herbarium and I grow hundereds of each every year.
I can tell you that I know what I'm talking about when it comes about these cultivars, there's nothing mixed up here.

Still not seeing any specific information about how you have managed to avoid the mis-labeling that prevails generally, including in Europe. What steps have you taken to verify each accession? Where you are located is not proof that each plant is the real thing.

Taking the naming of newly acquired stock on faith, without critical examination is a big part of the problem of numbers of mis-labeled plants being disseminated. A common argument for questionable stock being true-to-name is who it came from, the assumption being that the party providing the stock just wouldn't ever have something with the wrong name - rather than genuinely validating information like its diagnostically significant structural features, or its documentation showing it is derived from the original introduction.

And theoretically in some cases even if there is evidence the plant came from the nursery that introduced the cultivar it would be possible to get the wrong item, due to the same labeling mixups and other occurrences common to large operations in particular. Sometimes a series of similar clones will be introduced and named at the same time or during the same period of years.

bboy,

Theoratical seen you are completely right, but in practise it's not so difficult.
There are not so many cultivars of Thuja plicata hedge types which are named, so every nurseryman will be very allert to what they are growing.
From the other hand, all Thuja plicata hedge types are so differend in foliage, colour or habit that you can see the differences in an eye blink...

If Americans call Thujas 'cedars' (i.e., Cedrus), it is clear they don't care about accuracy of names, and the sort of anarchy bboy describes occurs. In Europe, we do care about names and use them more carefully.

Resin

Well, lets see, what bouts have we had on the ticket so far...We've had Species vs Cultivar, Yards vs Meters, Fahrenheit vs Celsius, Democrats vs Republicans, Suburbanites vs I'm Not Sure Who and Common Names vs Technical Names. Now we've added a tag-team bout of Common Name/Americans vs Technical Names/Europeans. Coming soon will be Stereotypists vs ?.

tj

All I'm reading along that line is "we don't have mislabeled stock in Europe".

The additional assertion that hedging type Thuja plicata cultivars are all conspicuously different from one another is also erroneous.

Hi, This discussion has been very helpful. However, I can't find any photos of thuja plicata euchlora, a location where I might be able to purchase it in the US or Canada, and general information about the cultivar. Does anyone know more? Thanks....

Just come across this discussion and for the pedantic plant nerd like myself. I find it fabulous to be shared on HOUZZ where the majority of users here don’t realise the complexities and nuances of plant selection!