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treeguy123

Juniperus recurva 'Castlewellan'

treeguy123
7 years ago
last modified: 7 years ago

Juniperus recurva 'Castlewellan'

Is there a U.S. nursery that sells this tree?

Is there even one single specimen in North America?

This would be in the top 3 most beautiful trees I've ever seen, and I've likely seen thousands.

Juniperus recurva 'Castlewellan' is much better than Juniperus recurva var. coixii in my option because Juniperus recurva 'Castlewellan' has longer weeping branches and much finer foliage.

Comments (7)

  • maackia
    7 years ago

    It's a coniferous version of weeping willow. Nice!

  • Embothrium
    7 years ago
    last modified: 7 years ago

    And on the other hand I should mention FWIW that Jacobson, North American Landscape Trees (Ten Speed, Berkeley, 1996) says of typical J. recurva

    Kohankie nursery of Painesville, OH, sold it during the 1930s and '40s

    but to this I would add we don't know how their stock was being handled - maybe they were growing them in containers and sheltering them.

  • davidrt28 (zone 7)
    7 years ago
    last modified: 7 years ago

    I doubt this cultivar is in the US if it isn't indexed in NALT

    The weeping form of J. recurva/J. coxii(?) that briefly made an appearance east of the Rockies* didn't seem very hardy at all. (I'll never forget "farewell, floppy noodle tree" from one of our erstwhile posters who also purchased one) And in fact it died so quickly when it got cold that I got the succinct impression it was, in my garden at least, already in decline from some kind of dissatisfaction with summer conditions. As you might expect for a cloud forest type species. This sort of behavior is sometimes seen with cool summer antipodal plants...let's say you plant them one fall, they actually last through a normal winter and you think "hurray, it's hardy here"...then it goes through a summer and the roots slowly die off from root rot - maybe the top doesn't show the damage immediately, only shows reduced vigor - then the first few freezes of winter cause swift "root decompensation" and death. For example I remember a Chilean Berberis doing something like that. (And I'm the first to admit these findings, contrary to the assumptions some other people here seem to make)

    Yes the anecdote in NALT of an Ohio nursery selling it was a mystery I previously brought up here. But the Conifers Around the World book and its pictures IIRC (5 years since I saw it right when it came out) suggested to me there might be related species from a colder area towards Tibet; albeit less glamorous looking...I'm sure someone will clear that up. Maybe straight J. recurva is actually the plain one? Almost looked like a non-descript gas station Juniper!

    * probably due to one of the usual suspects like Iseli

  • davidrt28 (zone 7)
    7 years ago
    last modified: 7 years ago

    It would be cool if someone crossed this w/Juniperus rigida pendula to make something that would grow for us in the E/SE and still have the look. Both parents already being the best looking Junipers, probably...hard to see how the offspring wouldn't be as nice.

  • Embothrium
    7 years ago
    last modified: 7 years ago

    Jacobson (same) also notes that J. recurva is

    "closely related to, if not a mere variant of, J. squamata"

    and that J. recurva var. coxii is

    "never found below 10,000 feet"

    in the wild.

    Presumably because it is too hot.

  • Embothrium
    7 years ago

    I guess I could mention that if it is still there a friend has a plant I believe to have been received as var. coxii on a dusty soil (like ash tray contents) in Seattle. By now it may be as much as 3 ft. tall after some years in place. It always looks to me like it wants to be watered (and probably fertilized). And I am not sure it isn't the typical species rather than the var. - I have never checked. But as far as I know it hasn't died, including during any of the winters that have occurred during the time it has been present (the last significant thinning of the herd was in 1990, which surely predates this planting).

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