It's the second one, Coleonema Sunset Gold.

Is there a slightly smaller conifer that has similar yellow foliage? Something with a mounding habit - similar to a Mugo pin - would be ideal.

I know this is a conifer rather than a Coleonema.

I presume from your second comment that you would like a reccomendation over an identification.

There are so many possible dwarf yellow cultivars… Perhaps you could give more perameters: which part of the Bay Area? In a container, or in-ground? Can you prune to keep a small profile? Do you have a water source that is soft enough for conifers?

https://www.coniferkingdom.com/yellow-gold-conifers/?filter_cat_list_2=714

@iochroma I am in Zone 9b. This will go into the ground. I would prefer to not prune in the location where it is going as that is directly behind a stone bench. pH of our water is pretty close to neutral, around 6.8, and there is no water softener.

Look at it up close. It's definitely a Coleonema, not a Chamaecyparis.

I suggest you go to a large garden centre or nursery and tell someone what you are searching for. They should have what you want.

I don’t know what it is, but I’ve never known iochroma to be wrong on an id.

@iochroma And if you come up with some good guesses as to specific conifers that might match the photo I posted, I am interested in the identification of the posted plant, in addition to identifying smaller yellow conifers with a similar habit. If it is not a Coleonema, then it is a close cousin.

“If it is not a Coleonema, then it is a close cousin.”

If it’s a conifer, then it is not a close cousin, nor indeed any relation, to Coleonema.

westes, are you looking at this plant in the flesh or just at photos? If in the flesh, take a little sniff at the plant. It won't smell like a conifer. It isn't a conifer. It will have a slightly unpleasant scent. In spring it will get little pink flowers.

@gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9) If you know any variant names for Chamaecyparis that I would have any chance of ever finding, please share.

@tete_a_tete The plant photographed is one I own. I sniffed a few Juniper bushes and conifers, and my plant has a similar smell. But my plant has a much stronger smell like a woman's perfume, with complex scents mixed together. Since the online articles for Coleonema make reference to it having a very good fragrance when crushed, this seems to further point towards my plant being Coleonema.

I went out and sniffed my Coleonema (used to be called Diosma - a much easier name to pronounce. I don't even know how to pronouce the former). We'd had rain during the night and I had never crushed a piece of it before, so was very surprised when I smelled 'complex scents mixed together'. Citrus like. Would you agree?

But the smell I referred to when I said that it has a distinct scent is quite different. It's unpleasant. You might be walking down the street when you pass very close to a shrub in someone's front garden and wonder out loud, "What the heck is that pong?" as a friend of mine did once. It was Coleonema. I don't know if it's the flowers that give it that scent, but I never thought so. It's just a smell I associate with that shrub. (Yes, I know: I should test the waters. I will one day.)

Just to add, I make it sound worse than it is. It's just a touch unpleasant. Nothing to write home about (or a long post on a forum about).

@tete_a_tete I am not crazy about complex women's perfumes, so I would also say it was a tiny bit unpleasant. But that's a subjective thing, and some people might love it. The plant itself has no real smell. You have to crush some of it to access that perfume.

I am not crazy about complex women's perfumes

What about complex women, do you have an opinion on those?

@Embothrium Complex women are fine, as long as all the energy does not go into arguing. :)

Does anyone happen to know how wide and deep the roots for Coleonema pulchellum would be on a mature plant? I have to plan to move the two I have in the photo of this post. Would February be an okay time to move them? We are getting a lot of rain this Winter so I thought maybe that would help them to settle in.

Personally, I wouldn't bother moving a big one.

If I didn't want one where I had one, I would either cut it back really hard to shrink it down to a more user-friendly style (possibly to the base), or I would remove it and put in in one of my many compost piles. I wouldn't bother to remove all the roots, just cut below the crown of the plant so it wouldn't grow back.

If I did want one in the garden somewhere, I would buy a new, young, fresh one, and plant that. It would do so much better than digging and moving an already-established plant.

Coleonemas here are very common, somewhat boring plants. They are fine for a bit of greenery (or a bit of yellowy) but a bit ho-hum. And, as I said above, they have a strange pong. Their tiny flowers of pink or white are fairly nice, in a way. I think these shrubs look their best when, after a day of soft and gentle rain, they droop nicely.

@tete_a_tete Coleonema pulchellum does not have a taproot. We are about to dig up two of them and I will post if there is a problem getting them out. I am expecting it to be easy, but at least to be doable.

We took the smaller of the two out of its current soil, and the roots were shallow and much easier to dislodge than I expected. I left the plant in a tub of water for 20 minutes to saturate the root mass.

We prepared a small raised bed for this plant, and the soil is about 85% mix of redwood compost, sand, horticultural red lava, peat moss, and basic fertilizers. This is from a local wholesaler and the mix is called Ciardella's mix. They describe the applications as "a soilless blend used for potting, starting seedlings, bulbs and planter areas." I added to this about 7% turface and 7% clay loam soil. I think the pH is going to be close to neutral.

Does anyone have an opinion on whether this mix is going to work for this species, better than say clay loam in a raised bed? @gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9) ?

I like to keep raised beds very friable so I can easily plant and remove things from them. If this soil mix is simply overkill for a plant that could grow in anything, I can live with that. What I want to flag is if I made a mistake here that is likely to kill the plant.

Should I water daily for a few weeks?

While I probably wouldn't waste the expense of using it in a raised bed (no solid bottom I presume), it is certainly not going to kill the plant. Just keep an eye on the watering as it is not as moisture retentive as raised bed soil would be.

@gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9) What soil mix would you use in a raised bed for Coleonema if your native soil was clay loam (estimate 40% clay, 40% silt, and 20% sand)?

The planter mix I am using is indeed expensive, once you factor in transportation by truck.

I guess I could be using a sandy loam in this bed, amended with the Ciardella's mix to give more moisture retention? But that's also soil I have to buy and transport.

I would get the least expensive bulk soil mix I could lay my hands on. Here, that would be something like a 3 way planting mix ($29/cy) - a standard, all-purpose landscape mix, usually 1 part loamy topsoil, 1 part sand and 1 part compost. This is suitable for pretty much anything you want to grow in the ground or in a raised bed. Save the Ciardella's mix for actual containers.

@gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9) If you can believe it, planting mixes similar to the soil mix you are advocating costs between $80 and $110 from wholesalers here by the cubic yard. But this is the Bay Area, and they price everything here above other markets.

https://southbaymaterials.com/products/soil-and-compost/planting-mix

https://southbaymaterials.com/products/soil-and-compost/organic-mix

https://southbaymaterials.com/products/soil-and-compost/home-harvest-plantermix

If I did this for a living I guess I would find the secret supplier with lower pricing.

No, of course it doesn't have a tap root. What does? Not an awful lot.

Westes, I don't know why you complicate things and go for expensive stuff when you have a nice clay-based soil. Coleonema will wonder the same thing. It's simple, fuss-free and couldn't care less about fancy, over-priced products in packages with fancy writing.

@tete_a_tete I hate the aesthetics of hard clay soils. Even with a good mulch, they tend to harden and be difficult to work with. I like to be able to easily pull out plants with the roots fully intact and put in new plants easily. A friable soil is easier to work with.

Maybe a sandy loam amended with some organic material would be a healthier soil for plants and also easy to work with. I don't have that experience to know.

My philosophy for the past many years, is simplicity.

I had a property, in Sydney, Australia on an ancient alluvial flood plain, where the ground was concrete, masquerading as soil. In attempting to open it up, I broke the blade of a pickaxe.

Solution was to get trailer loads of composted green waste from the local recycle centre and put 6"+ on top of the ground with additional hort sand chucked in.

Just about everything I planted loved it, as did the worms who slowly mixed them together.

After returning to UK, I bought my current house, with again, heavy clay. Again solution was to import a few cub. metres of compost and pile on top of the existing soil. Top ups and additional smaller beds were done using the cheapest commercial bags of potting compost.

Works everytime, for me.

@thefof Zone 8/9 UK That is basically just a variation on the same idea I am using. Put a good soil above a bad soil.

For very large planting areas, what I have seen some gardeners do is import truckloads of topsoil (i.e., sandy loam soil with some organic mixed in already) and then plant into that and use a good compost as a mulch. Some might mix compost into the topsoil as well.

The wrong way to do it is to amend the existing hard clay soil. That's just a hellish amount of work and material, and you are fighting against mother nature and will probably lose.

Having said the above, I am at the stage of still wanting to better understand how much clay loam soil should be in whatever organic soil mix I prepare for a raised bed. Tapla's original formula for his own raised beds was all organic material. I read a few years ago that he now wishes he had put more native soil into that mix. So even the people who are at the top of the game for gardening struggle with these same issues.

I think that's it, we learn the hard way.

There was a time when I thought you couldn't have too much organic matter in a soil. But I found that you can. It makes it water repellent if it dries out.

@tete_a_tete

I know what you mean, but I didn't have that issue in Sydney and I'm not seeing it here in Cornwall.

Where I have had issues with organic composts being hydrophobic is when the composts were peat based.

After transplant, the Coleonema looks a bit shocked. How long should it take for the plant to come back? I am watering the soil daily now to keep it moist (but well drained).

I have been following this thread because I have a threadleaf cypress, a Chamaecyparis, dwarf variety. I am learning much from the discussion about soil and amendments.

Wastes, it may be shocked a bit, but doesn’t look too bad. I am no expert, but I imagine time will tell. Hope it settles in nicely for you.

debra

So the Coleonema I transplanted is dying. It is slowly browning out all the stems. I joined a South African gardening group, and several people there told me this genus is known to be very difficult to transplant. One person told me she transplanted three at the same time and only one survived.

I guess for the future I need to be very concerned about taking a root ball of original soil out with the plant. It's not okay to bare root the plant, even if you hydrate the roots for an hour in a tub of water before replanting.