Thuja Plicata 'Excelsa'

9 years ago

I have a few questions that I was hoping for help on. Last year I hired a nursery (bad idea) to plant a privacy screen in my backyard. On my own I successfully planted Thuja Green Giants and love them. They only had "Thuja Plicata Excelsa'. They told me this was essentially the same thing, and I am starting to doubt that.
-- So my first question is, is this true? Is there any pros/cons to the Excelsa vs the green giant?
-- Then after educating myself a bit I realized they had multiple leaders and this was one huge difference. They are 6 to 7 feet tall, and some of the leaders start at the bottom. Is it too late to correct this and re-train? I live in New England so wet and heavy snow i quite common.
-- My last question I might need pictures for. A couple have quite a alot of brown branches from the winter, I am wondering if I will be able to recover from this, and if so how.
Any advice would be GREATLY appreciated!!!! Thanks!!!!!!

Comments (2)

Embothrium
9 years ago
'Green Giant' is from T. plicata x T. standishii.
wisconsitom
9 years ago
...whereas, 'Excelsa' is a clone or cultivar of T. plicata. So they are close, but not identical.

The thing you can do about a competing leader which starts down low in the plant-and which removal of would leave an unnatractive plant-is to head back the offending one somewhere along the way, if possible such that a branchlet facing outwards ends up being the end-point. That last bit is not as easy with a plant like an arb as with, say, a maple tree. But you may still succeed in locating such a point. In any case, by shortening the one, it will slow down and behave more as a branch, rather than a leader. If you look up the technique known as 'subordination pruning', you may find some info more complete than what I've offered. I can say that this system really, really does work.

+oM (really)
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