Would love some input.

I visited the Vermeulen Nursery in NJ several years ago before they closed. Nancy gave us a tour. We saw a venerable specimen of 'Flushing' that her grandfather selected. WHAT A BEAUTY. All the branching was strictly vertical, the large shrub was perfect with foliage all the way to the ground (they must have protected it from the deer) I don't think that any other upright taxus can compare with it's manicured look.

Sorry, no clue as to where it may be available today.

Thanks for the info, Sam! I may have to go with something more common.

Received a call back from a local wholesaler this AM that said he has 5 Taxus baccata 'Fastigiata' available. They have overwintered successfully. Wondering again about the correct ID.

I'm in the same camp with others... all those yews look the same to me.

Flushing is real hardy but I saw you have had success with baccata's 'Standishii' and 'David'. Dennis Hermsen in Farley started his plants from a 'Flushing' in Bickelhaupt Arboretum, IA, that's zone 4b/5a. And I couldn't tell you if baccata 'Fastigiata' is good with heavy snow while I can tell you that Flushing is solid.

Dax

From the looks of these photos, if I go with them I would have to probably take coniferjoy's advice on cutting them back to half in order to thicken up the bottom. A few look nice and tight in the photo but the first one says "I'LL SPLAY IN SNOW". lol I'll get to see them in person tomorrow.

No kidding! I looked at that one and thought "no way!"

Good luck, see what you want to do :-)

Dax

Just throwing it out there... you can wrap the trunks from the inside to tighten up the form on upright yew, this also resolves the slow splay issue. I do this on my 10ft yew foundation plantings. You can use green twin as well, so it's impossible to see.

Basically you mean pulling in the branches and strapping them to the trunk?

Fastigiate yews are multi-leader, so there are many trunks as is visible in your photo above. The objective it to just pull those vertical "trunks" tighter together. It's commonly done, not just for snow load, but to enhance the look of upright yew, they tent to adopt a more open form as they grow taller. The dual advantage is that is prevents splaying.

You could also wrap them on the outside of the foliage just for winter too, but looking at your photo above, it seems those would look much nicer in a more columnar form, they are already starting to open up. My Emerald green arbs, I simply wrap with green twine on the outside, and just for winter, as the style of the tree doesn't require such a tight upright form, I only tie those to prevent winter damage, not aesthetics.

Just an update. I ended up going w/ three of the specimens from the local nursery. They are every bit of 6.5' in the ground - just beautiful! Still evaluating if I want to wrap them or chop them in half. I'm leaning toward wrapping. ;) The one closest to me is the most open, as you can see. It may be a problem child.

I can't tell what nursery they are from initially. Took a pic of the tag but all it says (and the smaller tag that is wrapped on the stem) is "Made in the USA". No nursery name. Look familiar to anyone?

Ten HUT!

Given enough time Irish yew can actually become a 60' tree, if you live there long enough you will have to shear to keep those in that narrow strip. And as mentioned they already have gaps - expect splaying open in snow.

One thing that is funny is despite the poor branching issue some examples do manage to become, as I mentioned large trees. Perhaps this is due to seedling variation, stocks sold may not be uniform as upright habit seedlings do come up rather often. In fact the basis for the cultivar is one of two spontaneous seedlings found in Ireland around 1760.