From £3.72
From £6.00
From £6.95
From £12.96
Western Red Cedar, Thuja plicata, is a big, vigorous, evergreen conifer with flaky bark when it is mature and rich green aromatic leaves. It can be clipped and used for formal hedging, or grown as tall screening. Mature trees tend to be slender and straight, with slightly droopy, lush, leafy branches down to ground level unless they are in a shady forest situation, where they will drop their lower branches.
Browse our selection of evergreen hedging plants or our full range of hedging.
In Britain, this tree will reach about 30m.
Delivery season: Cedars are delivered bareroot during late autumn and winter, approximately November-March inclusive.
Only use this plant as a hedge if you know that you will clip it every year, without fail. It cannot be hard pruned if it gets overgrown (well, it can, but the resulting bald patches are not desirable).
We don't want to give you the wrong impression. Western Red Cedar is a lovely hedge plant and smells fabulous after you clip it, but if you are a low maintenance lover and don't want too much responsibility, use Yew instead.
While it is gaining height, you can clip it once a year in September. As a mature hedge, trim it twice a year for best results, in June and again in September.
This tree is tolerant of partial shade and will grow on any fairly well drained soil, including chalk.
The largest Red Cedar alive today is 55 metres, but there was a tree that was destroyed by fire in 1972 that was 71 metres tall: that tree was about 700 years old.
The rot resistant wood has been used for a wide range of purposes from garden sheds to Native American canoes. Mature wood contains a powerful fungicide called Thujaplicin, which makes the timber so durable. They were of huge importance to the Native Americans of the Northwest Coast of America and felling one tree using mostly stone tools and controlled fires would take them a couple of weeks. The fibrous bark is perfect for essential products like rope, clothes and baskets.
Formerly classified as Thuja gigantea and Thuja lobbii, other common names include the British Columbia or Californian red cedar, and the Giant Nootka Sound arbor-vitae.