Here's the 'true' 'Green Giant': US National Arboretum. I've never heard of Thuja serphyllum and can't seem to see that it exists.

90 bucks for a green giant????.. buy a 2 footer for 10 bucks.. and be done with it ... it will outgrow larger specimens.. given time ...

youve given us no info on your yard.. dimensions.. etc ..

no tree ever stops growing.. so the numbers you quote are useless given decades or centuries ... who knows who made up those numbers.. all speculation in my book ....

i bought 6 INCHERS for 2 bucks a piece . .. 15 years ago .. they are about 25 feet tall .... that is what i call.. tree time .... you buy the 5 footer for 90$ .. and i would bet.. 15 years later.. it will be the same size as mine.. given the years .. transplant shock ... etc .....

there is little instant gratification in trees.. aka.. conifers.. say why pay the premium????

ken

I would tend to agree with Ken about smaller being better, especially fast growing plants, but sometimes it makes sense to buy a little bigger plant. There's no shame in that and I don't mind contributing to the nursery industry. It's a win win.

Good point. I did want to point out as someone 3.5 years removed from conifer newbieness that I would have never believed the following 3.5 years ago. I remember reading it on here 3.5 years ago, probably posted by Ken, and thought it was a crock.

"90 bucks for a green giant????.. buy a 2 footer for 10 bucks.. and be done with it ... it will outgrow larger specimens.. given time"

I am witnessing this firsthand. My first year I paid $150 for a 8' tall or so white pine (yikes!). I have since planted a number of $5 and $20 white pines. While the growth rate of the big guy should hopefully pick up, there is little doubt in my mind that in about 3 years (or less) the $2O ones (about 3' when planted) will be taller, fuller, and generally more vigorous than the $150. The big guy while healthy looking just hasn't grown much at all so far. I think it had been around the nursery for a few seasons and looked like &$@ but I was a kid in a candy store and needed a white pine.

I've bought one "big" green giant (10-11' perhaps) and a bunch of $5 ones. Glad I got them all, the large one is growing fine, unlike the white pine mentioned above. I was a newb and bought pretty much at least one of every conifer this place (which turned out to be the most $$ nursery in the area) had. At this point I hadn't even bothered checking out any other nurseries.

Here's the same trees you were looking at from Lowes in the ground for 3 years or less. I didn't pay that for mine and I bought all they had for a better price. Some seen in this album are Leland Cypress as a back block so I can enjoy the elegance of the GG's when grown up! Take a look. http://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/75038747/thumbs/green-giants-and-leland-cypress-screening