Landscape Ideas from Me

Coffin Cypress

Taiwania cryptomeroides

Wow what a beautiful tree!!! Why doesnt anybody plant this Taiwanese native? I really cant answer why this obviously hardy very beautiful coniferous tree isnt more widely grown in the U.S. Then again this is why I am here.!!! For the south eastern U.S. and places from Portland to Vancouver on the West Coast - it is the perfect large evergreen landscape tree. It is one of the worlds longest lived trees; is extremely beautiful and is unbothered by insects or disease

The Coffin Cypress is very fast growing ( 43 x 13 feet in 20 years reported in NC as well as similar in British Columbia, Canada ) and single year growth rates of 6.6 feet height increase and 1 inch trunk increase are known. It is almost extinct and logged out of existence in the wild - this tree is in the same family as the California Redwoods and can also grow rediculously huge!!! It can grow to 240 feet tall, 40 feet or more in canopy width, and with a MASSIVE 20 feet in trunk diameter ( up to 33 ft. across at the swollen trunk base ). The crown is conical and had graceful drooping branchlets.
The attractive reddish bark peels in strips and the cypress like foliage is bluish green.
This tree is hardy from zone 7 ( 0F ) and south and loves the hot humid summers of the southeast U.S. It prefers moist, acidic, well drained soils in a place protected from wind in full sun.

* Picture of giant old tree in Taiwan that I found on the internet

* More pics of Taiwania cryptomeroides ( Coffin or Taiwan Cedar ) planted at U.S. National Arboretum in Washington, D.C. - pics taken by myself on Febuary 2009 ( and this vigorously growing young tree will someday be that huge in a few thousand years! )







* photos taken on June 23 2013 @ U.S. National Arboretum, DC


Taiwania flousiana

An almost identical equally hardy species found in southwest China and Burma. Hardy north to zone 7. The tree in the photo below taken on February 2009 @ U.S. National Arboretum in DC is to date the only one I have seen in the U.S.



* photos taken on 4th of July 2010 @ U.S. National Arboretum, D.C.