Talk of The Villages Florida - View Single Post - Thuja Green Giant Tree
View Single Post
 
Old 06-22-2022, 10:08 AM
tophcfa's Avatar
tophcfa tophcfa is offline
Sage
Join Date: Feb 2015
Location: Wherever I happen to be.
Posts: 7,778
Thanks: 3,643
Thanked 11,312 Times in 3,604 Posts
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Flyers999 View Post
Does anybody have this tree? I planted it around five years ago and it came up fast and gave me the privacy that I was looking for. I cut the top of it off because I didn't want a tree too high. It didn't seem to like that and didn't grow any taller. It started to get brown branches which I cut off, but it got more brown branches as you can see in the attachment. Massey said that because this tree is not popular to our area, it probably won't last more than seven years.

The place that I bought it from, is now not recommending that it be grown in Central Florida, only zones 5-8. It certainly is a beautiful tree that reminds me of the north.
The Thuja Green Giant is a beautiful evergreen. The first photo are some I planted at our home up north in zone 5A. I tried planting arborvitaes several times but the deer kept eating them so I did some research and the Thuja Greens are deer resistant. In zone 5A it can get to 100 degrees in the summer and well below zero in the winter so they are very hardy and adaptable. A couple winters ago an ice storm with high winds broke off the top of one of them and the tree never recovered, similar to you cutting off the top of yours. I don’t think they respond well to trimming and shaping.

The other photo is of the the podocarpus privacy hedge we planted on both sides of our pool/birdcage at our Villages home (wildlife preserve is behind). In my opinion those are absolutely the best evergreen privacy planting for the Villages area. They grow very fast and thick with very little maintenance and can be trimmed and shaped without harming them.
Attached Thumbnails
The Villages Florida: Click image for larger version

Name:	FC499927-D00D-480C-97CC-C6B7CAB85AF6.jpg
Views:	1735
Size:	88.9 KB
ID:	94279   The Villages Florida: Click image for larger version

Name:	4CFF50E4-CEE6-4ACE-B880-AF9A52E91BA2.jpg
Views:	1531
Size:	100.4 KB
ID:	94280