Growing Holger’s Juniper

Size and Appearance

Holger’s Juniper is a conifer evergreen forming a broad mound, 3 to 5 feet tall and about the same width. It develops with a flat top and more-or-less horizontal branches, ending in graceful, slightly pendulous stems. It branches densely from the ground, and only after many years does it develop a noticeable trunk at ground level. The bark flakes attractively, and is dark brown. The leaves are densely packed along the stems, each one a slender tapering triangle, standing out a little from the stem and ending in a narrow point. New growth is creamy-yellow to a slightly greenish sulfur-yellow, and it holds that color for some weeks, making a great contrast in your beds. Gradually the color fades, until by late summer it is a striking silver-blue, which then holds throughout winter until new growth develops in spring. Old plants may develop glossy black berries about one-third of an inch in diameter.

Using Holger’s Juniper in Your Garden

This evergreen is perfect for a striking foreground in your foundation planting. It’s graceful, slightly pendulous form and dramatic colors really stand out and add great beauty to your garden. It could be used in the foreground of larger garden beds, alone or as an edging. It is especially effective on slopes and among boulders and rocks, and even as an interesting lawn specimen. It could also be grown in a planter, and it is a beautiful and easy plant for making into a bonsai tree.

Hardiness

Holger’s Juniper is hardy almost everywhere, growing from zone 4 to zone 8, in all but the hottest and coldest parts of the country. It grows well in mountain areas and in dry regions, but also in urban locations. Despite its horizontal growth, the stems are very strong and resist even heavy snow loads without breaking.

Sun Exposure and Soil Conditions

Like all junipers, Holger’s Juniper grows best in full sun, with the most vigorous and dense growth, and the best foliage colors. It will grow in any well-drained soil, including sandy and rocky ground, poor urban soils, clays, and in ordinary garden soils as well. It is drought tolerant and has a high tolerance of salt-spray in coastal locations.

Maintenance and Pruning

Usually free of pests or diseases, Holger’s Juniper is incredibly easy to grow. Water regularly when newly planted, but once a good root system has developed it is tough, reliable and drought resistant. It is best left untrimmed, to enjoy the natural arching form, but if you do need to reduce its spread, do this by trimming branches back to just in front of a branch growing upwards, so that the cut is hidden. Don’t trim with shears or hedge trimmers.

History and Origin of Holger’s Juniper

The scaly juniper, Juniperus squamata, is called that because of the scale-like pointed leaves and the flaking bark. It is also called the Himalayan juniper because it grows across a large area from northeastern Afghanistan to western Yunnan in China. It is found up to 15,000 feet above sea-level. Known as gao shan bai (高 山 柏) in China, it is a popular tree for bonsai and penjing, admired for the way it develops weather-beaten gray trunks and horizontal forms.

The variety called ‘Holger’ was found as a unique seedling in 1946 by Holger Jensen of Ramloesa Nursery in Helsingborg, Sweden. It is likely that it is actually a hybrid plant, from a cross that took place at the nursery between a plant of Juniperus squamata and a plant of Juniperus x pfitzeriana ‘Pfitzeriana Aurea’, a large hybrid juniper with golden foliage.

Buying Holger’s Juniper at the Tree Center

This striking juniper isn’t often available, so you aren’t going to see it in every garden in your neighborhood – just yours, where its graceful and unique beauty will make it a stand-out plant and give your garden a special look. Order now, because knowledgeable gardeners quickly buy quality plants like this one – they will soon all be gone.

Growing the Gold Star Juniper

Size and Appearance

The Gold Star Juniper is a spreading conifer evergreen with horizontal branches radiating out from the central trunk just like the rays of a star. At first it is a single flat layer, but as it matures it develops multiple layers of branches, rising gradually to about 3 feet tall and ultimately to perhaps 4 feet tall. It spreads outwards into a circle that will become 5 or even 6 feet across within 10 years, so don’t overcrowd it when planting – allow enough room for its development.

The branches are covered in sprays of foliage that is flat against the stems like scale when newly sprouting, but that is otherwise entirely made up of small triangular needles growing around the stems at an angle. These ‘juvenile’ leaves give a fluffy or fuzzy look to the plant, different from the thread-like leaves of many other junipers. The foliage is bright glowing yellow in spring and when newly-sprouted, turning chartreuse to sea-green as it matures. Older leaves are more bluish-green with golden overtones, and even in winter there is a significant golden look to the plant.

The changing foliage colors create a lot of visual depth, with the center of the plant being darker, while the tips are bright yellow. Older plants may develop clusters of blue berry-like cones in winter, but these are not the juniper berries used for flavoring.

Using the Gold Star Juniper in Your Garden

This plant is highly-effective for covering areas of ground, especially on slopes, where it gives good erosion control. Plant it along the front of a bed along a driveway to soften the hard line, setting plants 18 to 24 inches back from the edge. Plant in groups to cover larger areas, allowing 3 or 4 feet between plants. Grow it among boulders and in rock gardens, or in sunny, exposed places, including sea-side locations. Turn a boring and bare slope into a cascade of beauty by mixing the Gold Star Juniper with a variety of other creeping and trailing plants like blue junipers and cotoneasters.

Hardiness

The Gold Star Juniper is very cold-resistant, growing without winter damage in zone 4, and also growing well in just about every part of the country.

Sun Exposure and Soil Conditions

Full sun is needed for good growth and color with the Gold Star Juniper. More than an hour or two of shade each day will turn the foliage more green, and encourage root diseases. This plant needs well-drained soil, so avoid wet and low-lying areas, but otherwise, it grows in just about any soil, from heavy clay to dry sands and gravels, including alkaline soils.

Maintenance and Pruning

Deer won’t eat it, and pests or diseases are not found when grown in the sun with good drainage. Really, there is nothing to do with the Gold Star Juniper but plant it, water each week for the first few months, and then enjoy it. It is drought resistant, so watering is rarely if even needed once it is well-established. We recommend allowing enough room when planting to avoid the need to trim, as this easily destroys the graceful arching and softly-weeping form of this tree. If you do need to reduce the spread, never cut back into branches without leaves, as they will not resprout. Remove the tips of branches by hand, cutting back to just in front of a shoot on the top of the stem, to hide the cut and keep it looking natural.

History and Origin of the Gold Star Juniper

If you are even in Berlin, visit the Späth Arboretum, where there is a very old juniper growing that was collected in 1866 by the French missionary and botanist Armand David in Inner Mongolia. At first this plant was thought to be an unusual form of the Chinese Juniper, Juniperus chinensis. In 1947 the American plantsman Peter Jacobus Van Melle took a deeper look at it, and realized it was a natural hybrid between the Chinese juniper and the savin juniper, Juniperus sabina. Both of them grow naturally in Mongolia. He named it Juniperus x media, a name still in use, but today the name Juniperus x pfitzeriana, the Pfitzer juniper, is more correct.

In 1923 a Pfitzer juniper growing at the D. Hill Nursery in Dundee, Illinois sprouted a branch with golden foliage. This became Pfitzeriana Aurea. In 1961 some of those plants were growing at the wholesale nursery of J.C. Bakker & Sons Ltd. In St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. One plant seemed different to the sharp-eyed grower, and he put it aside, growing pieces of it and studying them for 9 years. It was indeed different, with a lower, more compact habit and with entirely juvenile foliage. In 1975 it was patented as Bakaurea, and that patent (PP# 3,801) expired in 1995. Although never registered as a trademark, the name Gold Star was given to this plant, and that name has stuck.

Buying the Gold Star Juniper at the Tree Center

This juniper has been around a while, but it has stood the test of time and still stands out as a great spreading juniper of medium size, that can be relied on for effective planting and durability. It is always popular and desirable, so order now, because out stock will soon all be gone.

Even better, it lends itself to simple training that can turn it into almost anything, from a miniature topiary tree to a striking bonsai. With training it could be 3 or 4 feet tall, a column of tumbling branches. Or keep it flat, as nature intended, and let it do its own thing. However you treat it, you’ll love it.

Growing the Dwarf Garden Juniper

Size and Appearance

The Dwarf Garden Juniper is a low-growing mounding evergreen conifer. It grows mostly outwards, with longer branches supporting shorter, stiff stems covered in dense foliage. It grows about 6 inches a year, spreading to about 5 feet across and a foot tall within 10 years. Older plants rise up more in the center, taking a mounded, slightly taller form, and could one day be 10 feet across. Always strikingly attractive, the branches are covered closely with triangular needles that lie partly flat and then push outwards, creating a ‘spiky’ look. They are a soft bluish green color, and can turn purple in winter when grown in colder zones. Although the branches curve downwards, the tips rise up, giving it a special and unique look that is very appealing. It doesn’t have the more typical horizontal, lacy growth we see in most spreading junipers, such as the Blue Rug Juniper. The usual dark-blue cones of junipers may occur on an old plant, but they are generally absent.

Using the Dwarf Garden Juniper in Your Garden

The special look and adaptability of this plant makes it ideal for gardens of all kinds. It is superb as a specimen growing among rocks and spilling over gravel. It will semi-cascade over a retaining wall, or creep up boulders or walls. It will grow down slopes, or nestle among other plants and flowers. Each plant develops a unique form, and this is the plant that you see in those amazing 500-year old juniper bonsai trees from Japan. It is ideal for training into special forms, including bonsai of course, but also Western-style topiary and miniature ‘poodle’ trees. From zone 5 or 6 it can be grown outdoors all year in a pot or planter, and looks fabulous in a courtyard or tiny urban space. It grows well in dry places, once established, and grows at the coast, even right on the beach.

Hardiness

The incredibly tough Dwarf Garden Juniper will grow all the way from zone 4, where it lives without winter damage, into the heat and humidity of zone 9, so don’t worry, it will almost certainly grow well where you live – wherever that is.

Sun Exposure and Soil Conditions

For best results, place the Dwarf Garden Juniper in full sun, but it will also take an hour or two of shade each day if it must. It grows easily in any well-drained soil, including dry, rocky, shallow and gravel soils. Urban conditions don’t bother it either. Avoid wet ground, especially in winter, as this can encourage root rots and leaf diseases. For containers, use a pot with a good drainage hole, and plant in soil for cactus and succulent plants.

Maintenance and Pruning

Normally free of pests or diseases, and untroubled by deer, and thriving in hot, dry locations once established, there really is nothing you need to do for this plant. Don’t trim it, unless you are creating a topiary. Use stakes to train up the main stems, and remove lower branches as needed, if you are making bonsai or special shapes.

History and Origin of the Dwarf Garden Juniper

The Japanese Garden Juniper, Juniperus procumbens, is only native to a few locations in Japan. It probably grows wild on the high mountains on Kyūshū and on some islands and along the coast of southern Japan, and also in the south and west of Korea. It may have been more widespread, but for centuries old trees have been dug up to grow as bonsai, and wild populations are now rare. It is closely related to the Chinese juniper, Juniperus chinensis, and is sometimes treated as a variety of that tree.

From the late 19th century until WWII there was a thriving trade in plants from Japan to America, and many of our garden plants arrived in that period. The dwarf variety of garden juniper, Juniperus procumbens ‘Nana’, was first imported from Japan, where it was widely grown for bonsai and potted trees, by Arthur Hill. David Hill was a Scotsman who was sent to America in the 19th century to collect new plants for a British Botanic garden. He traveled to Dundee, Illinois seeking a distant relative, William Hill. When they met he eventually married William’s daughter, and when the money of the Botanic garden ran out, he started an evergreen nursery – D. Hill Nursery. His son Arthur Hill first listed the Dwarf Garden Juniper in their 1904 catalog.

Buying the Dwarf Garden Juniper at the Tree Center

A truly outstanding evergreen, and one that should be in every garden, you really must have the Dwarf Garden Juniper in yours. Because of the high demand for this tree supplies are always stretched, and supply-chain difficulties mean our stock is limited. So order now – you won’t regret it for a moment.

Growing the Pancake Juniper

Size and Appearance

The Pancake Juniper is a low, creeping evergreen conifer, that sends out radiating stems lying flat on the ground. These spread out in fan shapes, and weave together, making a solid covering over the ground. It rises just 2 or 3 inches in the air – the height of a lawn – but grows outwards up to 6 inches a year, covering an area several feet across. It continues to keep growing as long as it is alive, continuously expanding, but never getting any taller. The scale-like needles are small and triangular, clinging to the stems tightly, forming a dense covering. They are bright silvery blue – brightest and bluest when new, and remaining a silvery gray-green year round. In winter, especially in colder zones, it may develop purple tones. It is about half the height of the otherwise similar Blue Rug Juniper (‘Wiltonii’). Older plants may occasionally produce a few of the small, dark-blue, rounded berries typical of female juniper varieties.

Using the Pancake Juniper in Your Garden

An eye-catching feature anywhere, the Pancake Juniper is perfect for adding interest to boring flat areas, or covering slopes and banks, where it will reduce soil erosion. Grow it among rocks and boulders, where it will follow the contours of them. Plant it at the top of a wall to cascade down, clinging closely, or use it to cover unsightly, rocky areas of dry soil. Plant it in the front of beds against a wide path, driveway or patio to soften the straight outline. It is very resistant to salt-spray, so it’s a great choice for a beach cottage or coastal garden. To cover larger areas, plant in groups, spacing each plant about 2 feet apart. Within a few years you will have a continuous silver-blue mat.

Hardiness

Incredibly resistant to both heat and cold, the Pancake Juniper grows almost everywhere in the country, from chilly zone 3 to hot zone 9. It tolerates dry, desert atmospheres, and also hot and humid ones, as well as cold regions and exposed places.

Sun Exposure and Soil Conditions

Full sun is best for the Pancake Juniper. More than a very little shade will weaken it, reduce growth, and turn the blue colors more green. It will grow in any well-drained soil, and that includes dry, sandy soils, stony ground and gravel, and urban waste. In fact, it prefers those drier places to over-rich, moist soils, which can encourage foliage diseases, especially if the area is wet in winter. Established plants are very drought-resistant, although young plants should be watered regularly during the first year, if the ground is dry.

Maintenance and Pruning

Pests and diseases are very rare, and deer leave it alone too, so the Pancake Juniper is very easy to grow. It doesn’t need trimming, but if you want to reduce the spread, do this by removing individual stems, cutting back to just in front of an upward facing stem, to keep the natural look.

History and Origin of the Pancake Juniper

The creeping Juniper, Juniperus horizontalis, is native to northern parts of North America, growing wild from Alaska through Canada and the northern states into New England. It is literally growing from sea to sea. Wild plants vary in height, but can be up to 18 inches tall and 10 feet wide. There are several different forms grown in gardens, but none as low-growing as the Pancake Juniper. It was discovered in the 1990s by Bill Janssen, who owned Collectors’ Nursery in Battle Ground, Washington State. He specialized in rare plants of many different kinds, but has now ceased business.

Buying the Pancake Juniper at the Tree Center

Junipers present a special challenge to growers, who must select pieces to root that have the correct habit – in this case horizontal, not vertical. Our growers take great care to preserve the exact characteristics of the variety, and you can be sure your plant will indeed be ‘flat as a pancake. Order now, though, as this variety is hard to obtain, and always sells out fast.

Growing the Gold Lace Juniper

Size and Appearance

The Gold Lace Juniper is a spreading evergreen shrub, which grows 6 to 12 inches a year, reaching a height of 4 or 5 feet and spreading up to 7 feet across. It has an attractive mounding form, with semi-pendulous branch tips that hang downwards in a graceful way. The fine, lacy foliage gives it a softer texture, and best of all the leaves are wonderful shades of pure gold not just at the tips of the branches, but all across the bush, throwing a carpet of gold across the brown earth. The color holds through winter and summer, bringing a stable element to your design, and lifting the colors of the green shrubs around it. The leaves are small, pyramid-shaped and pointed, growing outwards from the stems. In Junipers this is called ‘juvenile foliage’, and it gives the bush a softer look and a lacy effect which is delicate and attractive in the garden. Older bushes may develop round berry-like cones. These are juniper berries, but they are not the type used for cooking or making gin.

Using the Gold Lace Juniper in Your Garden

On banks or level ground, as part of your foundation planting or out in your garden beds, the Gold Lace Juniper is incredibly versatile and useful. Plant it in front of larger shrubs to create that essential layered look in your beds, or use it alone to cover slopes, where the foliage and roots prevent soil erosion. Plant it between stones on a rocky slope, or beside manholes and other ugly features, to hide them. Use it with other interesting conifers to fill sunny and dry areas with color and interesting shapes. For group planting, space plants up to 4 feet apart to create a solid covering in a few years.

Hardiness

The Gold Lace Juniper is very hardy, thriving even in zone 4, and yet growing well all the way into zone 9. It is a plant for all American gardens.

Sun Exposure and Soil Conditions

Although the Gold Lace Juniper will grow in shade, the gold coloring develops best in full sun, and plants in full shade will produce thin, pale green foliage. So plant it out in the sun and enjoy those great gold colors. It grows best in any well-drained soil, but avoid areas that are wet, especially places wet through winter. It enjoys open, sandy soils and rocky ground, but on slopes and banks it will grow in clay soils too. Alkaline soils and saline soils are also tolerated, and this plant is resistant to salt spray, so it’s a good choice for coastal areas. Established plants are very resistant to long periods of drought.

Maintenance and Pruning

Pests and diseases are virtually unknown on the Gold Lace Juniper, and deer normally ignore it. Some evergreen fertilizer is beneficial in spring to maximize the growth of young plants. It grows naturally dense and looks most attractive untrimmed. It can, if you wish, be sheared into a low hedge, but you must start trimming when young, because bare branches, with no needles on them, will not re-sprout. To keep it more compact, remove the ends of the branches, cutting beneath an upward-facing shoot to hide the cut end, keeping a natural look.

History and Origin of the Gold Lace Juniper

Back in 1866, a French missionary and botanist called Armand David was exploring Inner Mongolia. There he found an unusual juniper, which he sent back to Europe. That original plant is still growing at the Späth Arboretum in Berlin. It was at first thought to be a form of the Chinese Juniper, Juniperus chinensis. In 1947 the American plantsman Peter Jacobus Van Melle studied that species, and realized that the Späth Arboretum plant was a natural hybrid between the Chinese juniper and the savin juniper, Juniperus sabina. Both of them grow naturally in Mongolia. He named it Juniperus x media, but later botanists renamed it Juniperus x pfitzeriana, the Pfitzer juniper, which today is its correct name.

Junipers often produce branches that have mutated, and look different from the rest of the plant. In 1923 a Pfitzer juniper at the D. Hill Nursery in Dundee, Illinois sprouted a branch with golden foliage, which became a popular plant, called ‘Pfitzeriana Aurea’. In 1983 a group of those plants were growing at the wholesale nursery J.C. Bakker & Sons Ltd. In St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. A unique branch was seen on one of the plants and new plants were made from pieces of that branch. Its more compact, lower growth, and persistent, uniform gold color made it unique, and it was patented in 1993 with the name ‘Gold Lace’. That patent expired in 2013.

Buying the Gold Lace Juniper at the Tree Center

You will love the graceful way the Gold Lace Juniper covers the ground, and its vibrant gold coloring, which is so stable through the year. It is a big improvement over older gold junipers, and always in high demand. Order the plants you need right away, as we won’t have it on the farm for much longer.