Graceful Dwarf Hinoki Cypress - Tree Form

One of the most charming and elegant of all small evergreen trees is the Graceful Dwarf Hinoki Cypress. It is also one of the fastest growing, so you don’t have to wait long at all for it to develop a mature look and a real presence in your garden. With its clusters of shell-like foliage, its dense form, and its bright green foliage, this tree wins the hearts of everyone who sees it. We decided that it needed to be seen even more, so we had our skilled nursery workers add a short trunk to it, so that even when young it stands up tall – to stand out in your garden. These are truly charming plants, and they will bring something special to your garden, or the garden of a friend or family member, if you are looking for the perfect gift.

The Graceful Dwarf Hinoki Cypress is a small, rounded evergreen bush, that can grow as much as 6 inches in a single year, soon becoming a beautiful rounded globe on a trunk that will thicken to support the tree as it grows. These bushes normally reach 4 or 5 feet tall in 10 years when grown on the ground. On this sturdy trunk they will grow of course grow taller than that. Beginning as a rounded shrub, as it grows and matures this cypress becomes more conical in form. The foliage is arranged in shell-like sprays of a rich green, lighter towards the ends, especially in spring and early summer when the new foliage is formed. The overall look of this plant is as graceful as its name suggests.

Growing Graceful Dwarf Hinoki Cypress Trees

Use the Graceful Dwarf Hinoki Cypress as an accent plant in a small garden bed – it brings extra height without adding much width. Grow it among a variety of small shrubs or use it with other small evergreens, to create a charming scene of shapes and colors as a feature in your garden. Plant it in boxes or pots for height and interest – you can plant beneath it with trailing plants and flowers for stunning displays at the entrance to your home, or to decorate a terrace. It normally has no pests or diseases, and it remains compact without trimming, although if you want a very neat form you can trim it once a year for a neater form. Trim in spring as soon as the warmer weather arrives, and before new growth begins.

Plant the Graceful Dwarf Hinoki Cypress in full sun or partial shade, with at least a few hours of direct sun each day. It thrives in a warm spot if the soil is not too dry. It will grow well in most garden soils, but it grows best in richer, moist but well-drained soil. Mulching with organic material will conserve moisture, keep the roots cool and provide nutrients too. Artificial fertilizers are only necessary when growing this plant in planters or pots. We suggest placing a permanent metal stake alongside the trunk and up into the plant itself, to protect against possible breakage as the upper part grows. Check the ties once or twice a year and loosen them if necessary, so that they don’t cut into the bark. The stake should eventually be tied at least 2 feet up into the crown.

History and Origins of Graceful Dwarf Hinoki Cypress Trees

It is hard to believe that this small shrub is derived from a large forest tree, the Hinoki Cypress, Chamaecyparis obtusa. This native tree of Japan can grow over 100 feet tall, but outside Japan it is rarely seen in this wild form. For centuries Japanese gardeners collected unusual forms of this tree, particularly ones that stayed small and dense. One of these compact forms was brought to Europe in 1862 by Philipp Franz von Siebold, a German doctor, plant collector and botanist. He named it ‘Gracilis’, which means ‘graceful’ in Latin. A few years later, in 1867, an English nursery called by H. Rogers & Son released an even more compact form of this plant, which may have been grown from von Siebold’s plant, or it may have been a seedling they grew at the nursery. It was called ‘Nana Gracilis’ (‘nana’ means ‘small’) and it has become a true classic evergreen that has stood the test of time. 

We asked our specialist growers to attach pieces of this plant to short trunks created from seedling Hinoki Cypress, to create these beautiful tree-form plants. The two sections fuse together to form a single sturdy plant. It takes a lot of skill, attention and time to turn them into the beautiful young plant you will receive, and of course such a plant could never be grown quickly and cheaply from seed. These tree-form plants are always difficult to find, and we are never able to keep them in stock for long, so order now, while we still have these unique plants available.