With its very slender but tall growth, the columnar or Mediterranean cypress is part of the typical appearance, especially of Tuscany. The evergreen tree is often found here, especially as a park or avenue tree. The tree, also known as Tuscan cypress, is also often used for narrow hedges, but is not reliably winter hardy everywhere in our latitudes. If you live in a very cold region, it is better to use more robust hedge plants.
Is a columnar cypress hedge hardy and what alternatives are there?
A columnar cypress hedge offers an attractive, Mediterranean look, but is only partially hardy and should be planted in mild climates. Alternatives are thuja, blue cypress, columnar cherry laurel or Leyland cypress.
Many design options in the Mediterranean garden
The fast-growing Mediterranean cypress is an eye-catcher in every garden, after all, the column-shaped exterior is very noticeable - this growth habit is completely natural and does not require any special pruning measures. In its Mediterranean homeland, the tree is often planted in avenues and parks, especially since it is considered very easy to care for and grows in almost any soil - for example, the plant is s alt-resistant and can therefore also be found in normally problematic coastal soils. Columnar cypresses are among the pioneer trees that colonize fallow areas very quickly. The tree is suitable for both solitary and group planting, for example as a hedge. In this case, you should plant the individual trees at regular intervals of between 60 and 80 centimeters.
Hedge made of columnar cypresses not hardy
Such a hedge of columnar cypresses should be a beautiful sight - but the tree should only be planted in regions with a mild climate (such as the German wine-growing regions). Mediterranean cypresses are only hardy down to a few degrees below zero and freeze quickly in very cold winters. This is particularly true for young specimens, which are better off in a pot for the first few years - the older the columnar cypress, the harder it becomes. However, the tree will not become really frost hardy as it gets older.
Similar alternatives to the columnar cypress hedge
So if you don't want to painstakingly wrap up your columnar cypress hedge every winter and protect it against frost orEvery year you hope that the temperatures don't fall too low this time either, so you should avoid planting the columnar cypress. However, there are a number of trees that look quite similar in appearance, which are also frost-hardy in our regions and are therefore more suitable for planting hedges. These include, among other things: Thuja (tree of life), blue cypress (Chamaecyparis laws), columnar cherry laurel (Prunus laurocerasus) or Leyland cypress (Cupressocyparis leylandii).
Tip
When planting columnar cypresses as a hedge, you should cut the fast-growing trees every year, otherwise they can quickly grow to 20 meters or higher under the right conditions.