Shonnard’s Nursery
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Other Names:  Golden Monterey Cypress

Description:

A very attractive dwarf variety with a tight columnar habit; bright golden with a lemony scent to the foliage; excellent when used as a color contrast in the garden or containers; can be maintained as a hedge

Top 5 Live Christmas Tree Picks

An increasingly popular alternative to a cut or an artificial Christmas tree is a living Christmas tree. This variety is an excellent live Christmas tree choice, allowing you to have a real tree inside and decorated for a very brief window – one to two weeks – and then move it back outside into colder weather for planting in the ground or a container.

Ornamental Features

Wilma Goldcrest Monterey Cypress is primarily valued in the landscape for its rigidly columnar form. It has attractive chartreuse evergreen foliage which emerges yellow in spring. The scale-like sprays of foliage are highly ornamental and remain chartreuse throughout the winter.

Landscape Attributes

Wilma Goldcrest Monterey Cypress is a dense evergreen tree with a strong central leader and 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 tree, and should not require much pruning, except when necessary, such as to remove dieback. 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.

Wilma Goldcrest Monterey Cypress is recommended for the following landscape applications;

• Accent
• Vertical Accent

Planting & Growing

Wilma Goldcrest Monterey Cypress will grow to be about 15 feet tall at maturity, with a spread of 3 feet. It has a low canopy with a typical clearance of 1 foot from the ground, and is suitable for planting under power lines. It grows at a medium rate, and under ideal conditions can be expected to live for 60 years or more.

This tree should only be grown in full sunlight. It prefers dry to average moisture levels with very well-drained soil, and will often die in 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 pH, but grows best in poor soils, and is able to handle environmental salt. It is somewhat tolerant of urban pollution. This is a selection of a native North American species.

Great Pick for Live Christmas Tree!

Smallest of the Lemon Cypress, with yellow-green needles and a citrus scent. Can be planted out, but also could be kept as a houseplant year round.