Have never seen these persisting outdoors here.

All species are tender and should be grown in a conservatory or in sheltered woodland in mild localities

--THE HILLIER MANUAL OF TREES & SHRUBS

I'll have to get some pictures of these plants and look for cones. It's possible that they are something else.

There ought to be a couple Callitris species that are hardy for us, if collected at higher altitudes.... the plants in question could be C. monticola or C. glaucophylla.

Southern hemisphere origin plants often prove to be ephemeral even when from high altitudes. Don't know a predictor for success. Accessions representing origins not previously tested would certainly be worth a try. Other groups do have a few species or collections that defy the general pattern.

>>All species are tender and should be grown in a conservatory or in sheltered woodland in mild localities

Woodlands might offer shelter but these prefer as much sun as possible.

I don't know a predictor for success but a lot of things can be ruled out when even the best provenances fail in cold Southern Hemisphere gardens (for example, Metrosideros isn't successful in Dipton, New Zealand).

A sunny woodland glade offers both warmth and wind protection. Quiet clearings can get quite hot while the sun is shining directly on them.

The former groundskeeper at LWTC confirms these to indeed be Callitris oblonga. I'll get some photos of them next time I'm in the area.

Without knowing exactly how long they've been there, I suppose they must have at least lived through the cold events of Nov 06 and probably Jan 04.... in not exactly the mildest part of the region.

What cold events? Let's talk about 1985, 1990...if a tree is going to be useful in an area it has to be able to live through winters like those - except for hobbyists who don't care if something dies after less than 5 or 10 years.

For better or worse, gardeners increasingly seem to care less about the longevity of their woody plants because they're just going to move and it will be 'someone else's problem.'

My point was that having passed a minor test of cold tolerance for our region (mid-upper teens F at that location, guessing) makes them worthy of further trial here. Having a number of them in different microclimates around the region would give us more valuable information about their hardiness when the next really cold winter comes.

Got into the teens in the cold Camano garden awhile back and a whole bunch of neat stuff all went.

@#$%^&*!!

So here's our supposed Callitris. Get a good look since it's probably dead as of this morning, if it's really as tender as it's supposed to be.

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"A few species have been successfully tried in Cornwall and Ireland and probably others would be found to have hardy forms if tried using a wide range of origins. The species from Tasmania and higher altitudes in Victoria and New South Wales are more likely to yield hardy forms. The very slender foliage with the scale leaves in whorls of 3 will serve to distinguish the genus; information on the constituent species can be found in Krussmann's Manual of Cultivated Conifers"

--Keith D. Rushforth, Conifers (1987, Facts on File, New York)

They're still alive. They have what I would call a moderate amount of damage. In exposed places the outer foliage is pretty much crisped but there is plenty of healthy, unaffected foliage underneath. Given the chance they ought to bounce back quickly this summer.

That's impressive since it was certainly very cold there. Judging from nearby personal weather stations it probably dropped to 12 degrees or lower at LWTC in December. All the big eucalypts there appear to be dead, or at least frozen to the ground.