CostCo are also selling conifers too. I know it's bad to buy at CostCo. :) They are selling Thuja Occidentalis Smargard.

Is Thuja Occidentalis Smargard the same as Green Giant Thuja? If not, which one is better, looks tidy, and grows faster?

Thanks.

No, Thuja Occidentalis Smaragd is not the same as Thuja Green Giant. Green Giant = Thuja (standishii x plicata).

Smaragd is also known as emerald green arbs, and they are those cute sentry-like plants that people plant as a screen. Green Giant, on the other hand, is a towering tree that might be 20x60 in 10 years. Both can be used for screening purposes but have different growth habits and are ideal for different applications.

Which one is better depends upon what you plan to use them for. I personally don't care for Smaragd, but that's just an opinion, and they are a good choice for certain applications.

If you're looking to buy a lot of GGs in bulk, Ebay has many vendors selling them in large quantities, although I cannot personally vouch for any of these vendors.

On second thought, 20x60 in ten years is probably faster growth than you can expect from GG. If you get 3 feet per year of vertical growth (which is possible), you'd be more like 10x30 after 10 years, 20x60 after 20. Your mileage may vary. Some people have reported faster growth, many have reported slower. I just planted a bunch of them and am getting about 2 feet a year right now, but they are not established yet. This year, with all the rain, they are growing like crazy.... wouldn't be surprised if I get 4 feet this year.

Oh, 20x60. The webpage I read is incorrect. They said that diamater is max 5-6 ft.

I am planning to screen and as hedge too. Then maybe shave them so they're flat on both sides. Not sure if that's a good idea.

Despite my overzealous estimate of vertical growth in my initial post, I am quite sure that GG can get *much* wider than 5 or 6 feet.

You can shave GG, but GG want to assume the stature of a tree, so asking them to be narrow and short is creating a lot of work for yourself when other plants might be more suitable. I've seen some really cool tall hedges created with GG, but I can't imagine how much work those things are.

How tall do you need the hedge to be? How wide? How much sunlight does the area get? What's the drainage like?

One of the others around here can probably recommend a suitable plant for you given the answers to these questions.

I was only expecting at least 15 to 20 ft even when not cut. I looked at some pictures and they look nice if left as a tree. 4 ft diameter will be fine. I'm planning to plant them 3 ft away from trunk to trunk to create a nice hedge.

Thanks! :)

'Green Giant' screens at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. I am thinking about 20 + years old.

Forget Thuja occidentalis 'Smaragd' if subject to heavy snow or ice. You don't say where you are living or the zone for your given area.. That is important when we are trying to advise you as to which conifer to use in a given situation.

Dave

{{gwi:637331}}

{{gwi:637326}}

{{gwi:637328}}

Wow! I like the thinner type then. I don't want as wide as that. Glad you posted a picture.

So I should go with smagard then.

'Smaragd'... ;0)

hey neil ...

how about.. instead of toying with us on the mission.. give it to us straight ... you simple said a hedge .... whats its purpose.. its mission... your goal???? be specific ...

my GG from 4 inch starts 10 years ago are about 15 feet tall and 8 feet wide..perhaps they grow 3 feet a year in a greenhouse.. or down south.. and year around.. but with your 4 months of frozen ground.. you will be lucky to get 18 to 24 inches.. after 'establishing' ... probably not what you want ...

smargard.. emerald green .... horrible snow plant .. unless you get single leader plants.. and good luck with that... but most likely are not going to get more than 15 feet tall in your lifetime .... well you are youngish.. so maybe by retirement.. lol ...

if you were looking for tall and thin.. and growing about 18 inches per year ... look into thuja occidentalis 'degroot's spire' .. see link .... and again.. insure single leader ... i have one about 12 feet tall and 2 foot wide.. perhaps it would work.. without.. as you say.. shaving it every year .....

also .. review this link .. for ice damage on thuja:

http://www.google.com/search?um=1&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&biw=1034&bih=938&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=ice+damage+on+thuja&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=

good luck

ken

Here is a link that might be useful: link

I've always thought that Green Giants have a fairly narrow spread? The older ones I've seen in person are very tall, the lower half of the tree being fat (10') then the upper half being real thin (3-4') then to a point once you hit the very top

Being 10' wide at 10 years, 20' wide at 20 years, 30 feet at 30 years, etc seems to large for these GG's. As I hope they are because I'm planting some this weekend and they are going 5' from my property line. If they got to 20' wide in 20 years, our neighbors won't be able to use there driveway that follows the property line lol.

A lot of the sites I read say the height should be 40' and width 10'. Of cource given time they will reach larger.

Rick, I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on Green Giants, but when I panted mine, it was with the expectation that they would continue to grow in both height and width at a certain "rate" well beyond my lifetime (or longer than I am likely to care). I don't expect them to "stop" getting wider unless they die, are removed, or lose vigor.

Check out this thread from the forum. There is a pic of GGs that I'm pretty sure are wider than 20 feet. However, a poster in this thread suggests that you can keep them narrower by crowding them.

Here is a link that might be useful: GG Thread

Rick, one more thing. When you see size estimates, that's usually an estimate of what the tree will be in 10 years, unless otherwise stated. So if you see a width estimate of 10 feet, you can expect it will be twice that in 20 years, unless you have some information (I do not) suggesting that these trees slow down their growth at year 11...

heres mine... planted in 2001 ..... called a 6 inch plant.. which was a 2 inch peat pot and around 4 inches of plant above ... planted on mineral sand.. irrigated for 2 years ...

i swear they grow every single moment the ground is not frozen solid ...

got them from botany shop ...

ken

note the hat for scale
{{gwi:326683}}

{{gwi:326682}}

Those look about 6 feet wide, in 10 years... In zone 5.

Mine also tend to grow continuously as long as the ground is above a certain temp (at least mine do), so we can expect more aggressive growth rates in higher zones, or at least that is my assumption. I am interested to see what kind of growth I pull this year in zone 6. Mine has been tromping upward all spring like a weed.

John, I understand. I was just wondering when you said 10' wide 10 years, 20' wide 20 years. From the older green giants I've seen, they are very thin compared to the height.

I wonder as they age, if they start to shoot up more vertical and don't put on as much horizontal growth. I know these are a relativly new plant, but I've never seen a real wide GG.

I've also read that if planted in rows lets say 6' on center, once they fill in the gap, they won't grow as tall/wide or as fast as they would if planted individually.

Rick, my earlier post was based on the 10 foot width estimate from an earlier post, which I presume to be a typical 10 year estimate, then extrapolated to 20 yrs, 30 yrs, etc. I haven't seen anything wider than 10 feet here locally either, but then again, I haven't seen very many of these that have been in the ground longer than 10 years.

On this plant, the problem with the 10 year estimate on the tag is that growth rate seems to vary widely with local conditions...

Ken - behind your green giants looks to be a fence with a house, is this your neighbors property? If so, how far away from the property line did you plant and do you see them crossing anytime soon?

My Green Giants are going to be going in 100' curve. At each end I plan to plant them 13' from the neighbors property, in the middle where the greatest part of the curve is, they will be 6 feet from the property. This will allow them to get to 12' wide before going over on my neighbors side.

I don't think they would say anything unless they got to out of control. I'm hoping that if I space them 6' on center, once they fill in to eliminate the gap, they won't grow out as fast. If they do go over and they complain, I could always cut them straight up on the neighbors side even with the property line (I'll never have to look at that side anyhow).

Ken, that row of Green Giants is stunning!

Here are some nice specimens at the Chicago Botanic Gardens.

We live 30 miles north of Kansas City and was worried that we might live too far north for these trees to thrive, but we loved they way they looked and thought we wouldn't know unless we tried. So,,, after talking to Mike at the Botony Shop in Joplin, Missouri, we decided to give them a try. We bought 430 of the 18 to 24 inch size Thuja Green Giants from Mike (http://www.botanyshop.com/index.htm) right before they were going to be transplanted to the next size container in August of 2007. Mike has been extremely helpful and has taken care of us any time we had any problems or questions! We planted them in two rows (rows being 10' apart) and staggered the trees, and planted the trees 5' apart from each other because we wanted a quick privacy hedge. They are absolutely beautiful trees! We learned the hard way, these trees require a lot of water! We have them on a drip system and water once every week or 10 days depending on the summer heat. The first year we lost over 100 of them because we live on a hill and didn't give the tiny trunks any protection from the bitter cold north wind. The 2nd and 3rd years, near the last day of November, we sprayed each tree with Wilt-Pruf and placed hay about 12 - 18" tall around all sides of each tree. That was a lot of work but it paid off. We didn't lose hardly any trees due to the cold north wind zapping the moisture out of them. We have some that were planted in heavy clay soil and those grow much slower than the others planted in good soil. This last year we ran into a new problem - spider mites! One or two 15 - 20' tall trees died in each row. We couldn't figure out what was going on because all the trees around them were green and healthy!! So, after all we've learned, we think we're finally going to have a great beautiful windbreak! We have learned that these trees require good heavy watering up to the first day of January in our planting zone. When there are warm days during the cold winter season, we water them then also. It's hard to treat evergreens because you don't realize they are stressing from something until it's too late! The only other issue we have with them is bagworms. Since we've sprayed them every June for bagworms, we haven't had anymore problems. So, in summary, water well, spray for bagworms yearly and spider mites twice during the summer months, protect from cold wind when they're small, and you'll have a beautiful windbreak that's well worth the work!!! The trees in the pic I've posted are now approximately 25' tall and growing by leaps and bounds. Little cotton tail's and birds of all kinds now have a safe haven!!! Oh, and deer don't bother the green giants at all!!! They walk right past them!!!

wow- stunning row of green giants you have there. surprised about the spider mites. I'm in MA and have no issues with green giants. spider mites like the alberta spruces & sometimes norway spruce- but never green giants. Never seen a bagworm either on the green giants. maybe its the zone? I've bought from Botnay shop too and all have survived. planted some tiny ones late last year in october- didn't protect them at all. the winter was brutal and the deer somehow managed to get into the property. as of now they are all still alive. it looked touch and go for a while but those little guys are tough.

We are wondering if it's the zone also. But sure enough,,, we have spider mites! I think our winter issue is that we live north of the city with no protection whatsoever up on a hill and when the cold wind blows, those trees are the first one the cold wind hits. The last several years we've had extraordinary cold winter temps with high winds. But all in all, we're extremely happy with them!

Ken, how do yours look after this past winter?

in my normal z5 MI garden .... the severe z4 winter had absolutely no impact on my botany shop GG ...

ken

I just ordered a Thuja Green Giant and a Japanese Cypress from Thuja Gardens on line. I already have about 6 Green Giants for about 15 years now and i love them.
Pat

thujagardens.com

Ken, good to hear. That would have been an ugly situation with all those burning. I admire their texture and strong leader they just don't make it over here.

Any updated pics? Those have had to have doubled since the pics above.

***
Posted by ken_adrian z5 (My Page) on
Tue, May 17, 11 at 13:27

i swear they grow every single moment the ground is not frozen solid ...
***

That may be true to an extent. With scale needles, they don't form buds -- just start & stop growth depending on conditions.