Tree · Cupressaceae
Juniper
Juniperus chinensis
Give it full sun and soil that drains, and juniper will forgive almost everything else across its long life.
Full sun
Every 7–14 days
USDA 3–9
1–59 ft · 0.3–18 m
Overview
If you've felt unsure about planting an evergreen, juniper is a wonderful place to begin, because it is one of the most forgiving you can grow. It belongs to the cypress family and lives across the northern hemisphere, taking cold, heat, drought, salt, and poor ground in its stride where fussier shrubs would give up. The forms run from flat groundcovers a foot high to upright trees reaching up to 59 feet (18 m), all wearing the same aromatic, scale-like or needle-like foliage.
The best part is how little juniper asks of you once it settles in. Give it sun and soil that drains, and it will hold its color through winter, steady a slope, screen a fence line, or stand alone as a handsome specimen. On female plants the berry-like blue cones take about two years to ripen and bring birds close through the cold months, a quiet reward for very little effort.
There is one honest limit that will save you worry later. Juniper grows slowly and will not resprout from bare old wood, so the shape you guide in the early years is more or less the shape you keep. Don't be nervous about this, just prune a little and often rather than waiting for one big cut down the road, and you'll do fine.
Care
The short version: full sun and fast-draining soil are nearly the whole job, and you're very capable of getting them right. Water through the first year to settle the roots, then step back and let it be, feed it only rarely, and prune gently into green growth.
Light
Juniper is happiest in full sun, ideally 6 or more hours a day, and it will get by with a little partial sun. Push it into real shade, though, and the growth thins, the color dulls, and disease finds its way in.
Water
Water a new juniper regularly through its first year to help the roots settle. After that it's very drought tolerant and only wants help in a long dry spell, so relax, because the one thing it truly won't forgive is soggy soil.
Soil
Sharp drainage matters far more here than rich ground, which takes the pressure off. Juniper handles sandy, rocky, and even clay soil as long as water keeps moving through, and it's content across a wide pH of 5.0 to 8.0.
Temperature
Few shrubs are this tough, so you can plant with confidence. Juniper takes everything from about -29°F to 100°F (-34°C to 38°C), holding its foliage through hard winters and shrugging off summer heat.
Humidity
Outdoor humidity is whatever the weather brings, and juniper simply doesn't mind. Air movement counts for far more than any humidity number, since still, damp air around crowded foliage is what invites the tip blights.
Feeding
Here's a relief for a busy gardener: juniper rarely needs feeding at all. If the growth looks poor, a single light application of balanced or slow-release fertilizer in spring is plenty, and overfeeding does more harm than good.
Pruning
Shape it lightly in late spring and cut only into green growth, because bare old wood won't push new shoots and leaves a gap that stays. Pinch off any dead, diseased, or blight-killed tips during dry weather and you'll keep it looking well.
Repotting
Container and bonsai junipers appreciate fresh room every 2 to 3 years. Repot when you notice roots circling the pot, water running straight through, or growth slowing with yellowing foliage, and the plant will thank you.
Size & spacing
The forms vary hugely, spanning 1 to 59 feet (0.3 to 18 m) in height, with spreads of 2 to 20 feet (60 cm to 6 m). Match the cultivar to your space and give each plant a little room so air can pass through the canopy.
When to plant
Juniper is planted rather than sown, and the kindest windows are spring and fall, when the soil is easy to work and the weather stays mild. Set your plants out in either season so the roots can settle before summer heat or winter cold arrive, and keep them watered through that first year while they find their feet.
Northern hemisphere
Southern hemisphere
Typical months for a temperate climate: start earlier in warm zones, later where spring frosts linger.
- Plant: spring or fall
- Harvest: inconspicuous; blue berry-like female cones mature over about two years
Hardiness
USDA hardiness zones: 3–9
Temperature: down to -40°C
Troubleshooting
Put a juniper in a spot it likes and it stays trouble-free for years, so most hiccups trace back to wet soil or crowded, damp growth. Keep a gentle eye on the new tips, the inner foliage, and the branches, and match what you see below before you reach for anything to spray.
Whole plant thinning and fading over time
When a juniper is left standing in wet ground, Phytophthora root rot creeps in and the foliage thins, dulls, and pales from the top down. The roots darken and rot, and this one is hard to reverse once it settles in. The kind thing you can do is fix the drainage, ease off the water, and gently replace any plant that is too far gone.
Fix:
- Improve drainage and stop overwatering
- Plant in raised beds and amend heavy clay with porous material such as ground pine bark
- Remove severely affected plants, as root rot is difficult to reverse
New tips fading and dying back at the ends
Take heart, because two treatable fungal blights cause this look. Phomopsis tip blight goes after soft new growth in warm, wet spells, and Kabatina tip blight takes year-old twigs in spring where a small wound has opened. You can turn it around by pruning well below the dead tissue on a dry day, wiping your tools clean between cuts, and opening the plant so air passes through freely.
Fix:
- Prune out and destroy blighted tips well below the dead tissue during dry weather, disinfecting tools between cuts
- Improve air circulation by spacing and selective thinning
- Avoid overhead watering and wetting foliage
- Apply a labeled fungicide (mancozeb, thiophanate-methyl, or copper) protectively on new growth where blight is recurring
Needles freckled yellow with a little fine webbing
Don't worry, because two small sap-feeders leave this pattern and both are manageable. Spruce spider mites stipple the needles in cool spring and fall weather and trail fine webbing behind them, while juniper scale sits as tiny bumps and slowly yellows the foliage. Hold a sheet of white paper under a branch and tap it to catch the moving mites, then rinse them off with a firm jet of water or insecticidal soap, and reach for a dormant oil spray in late winter for the scale.
Fix:
- Dislodge mites with a strong spray of water
- Apply insecticidal soap or a labeled miticide for heavy mite infestations and preserve natural predators
- Apply 2-3 percent horticultural oil as a dormant spray in late winter for scale, or treat crawlers with a labeled insecticide
Little spindle-shaped bags hanging from the branches
Those small carrot-shaped bags are the work of bagworms, caterpillars that feed from inside a snug case they stitch together out of bits of foliage. Left unchecked, a heavy crop can strip branches or take down a whole plant, so it pays to catch them. Pick the bags off through fall and winter to clear out the overwintering eggs, then give the plant a Bt spray in spring while the larvae are still tiny.
Fix:
- Handpick and destroy bags in fall and winter to remove overwintering eggs
- Apply Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) in spring while larvae are young and small
- Use a labeled insecticide for heavy infestations of older larvae
Woody galls growing orange jelly horns in spring
Those odd galls are cedar-apple rust and its close cousins, fungi that pass back and forth between junipers and apple-family plants like crabapple and hawthorn. The good news is that they barely trouble the juniper itself, so you are really acting to keep nearby fruit trees safe. Snip the woody galls away before they push out their orange horns, and try to keep junipers well clear of apples and crabapples.
Fix:
- Prune out and remove woody galls before they produce orange horns in spring
- Plant rust-resistant juniper cultivars
- Do not plant junipers within a few hundred yards of apples, crabapples, or hawthorns
- Apply a labeled fungicide (mancozeb or propiconazole) where control is needed, though galls do little harm to the juniper itself
Toxicity
Juniper is an easy, low-worry plant to have around animals and people. It carries none of the toxins on the standard poison lists, and its sharp, bitter foliage usually keeps pets and livestock from eating much anyway. The one thing to keep in mind is that the berry-like cones can mildly upset a stomach in quantity, and only a few species are the true culinary juniper used to flavor gin.
Safe for
People · Cats · Dogs · Horses · Rabbits · Livestock · Birds
Cats Caution
You can relax around cats, since juniper carries no poison and its sharp, aromatic foliage tends to keep them at a distance. If a curious cat does chew through a lot of the berry-like cones, the worst you'll likely see is a brief, mild tummy upset that clears up on its own.
Dogs Caution
A dog can sniff and poke around a juniper without any real danger, because it holds no listed toxins. Should one gulp a mouthful of the cones or oily foliage, you can expect nothing worse than a bit of drooling or a loose stool for a day.
Horses Caution
The strong terpene scent makes juniper taste off, so horses usually walk right past it. If one does graze a big helping of berries it might feel a little gut irritation, but you needn't treat the plant as a poisoning risk.
Rabbits Caution
Rabbits seldom bother with the resinous needles, and juniper holds nothing that threatens them. Just keep any nibbling on the small side, since the volatile oils can loosen the gut when a lot goes down.
Livestock Safe
Cattle, goats, and sheep tend to walk on by thanks to that bitter, aromatic foliage, and juniper stays off the usual lists of plants that poison them, so you can graze near it with an easy mind.
Birds Safe
Birds happily eat the ripe blue cones and carry the seed off as they go, so the fruit is nothing but a welcome meal for them.
People Edible with care
The berries of a few species, mainly Juniperus communis, are the very spice that flavors gin, but ornamental landscape junipers aren't all edible and some cones can unsettle the stomach. Stick to the known culinary species when you reach for the kitchen, and pull on gloves to handle the prickly, oily foliage.
The aromatic foliage and berry-like cones may cause mild, self-limiting stomach upset if eaten in quantity, and the prickly juvenile needles plus juniper oils can mildly irritate skin, so wear gloves when pruning. This is irritation, not poisoning.
Varieties
Junipers come in more shapes than almost any other evergreen, from creeping mats to pencil-thin columns, so there's a friendly fit for nearly any spot. These are the ones you'll most often meet at the nursery.
'Hetzii'
A strong, wide-spreading blue-green shrub that settles happily into big foundation plantings and screens.
'Sea Green'
A tidy, fountain-shaped shrub whose arching branches and warm mint-green foliage make a forgiving low hedge.
'Spartan'
A slim, dense, dark green column that climbs to about 15 to 20 feet tall yet stays only around 5 feet wide, the go-to upright screen.
'Hollywood' / 'Kaizuka'
An irregular, twisting upright dressed in rich green foliage that gardeners enjoy shaping as a living sculpture.
Juniperus scopulorum 'Skyrocket'
A pencil-thin blue-gray column so narrow it slips into the tightest corner as a vertical accent.
Juniperus squamata 'Blue Star'
A little mounding dwarf of 1 to 3 feet, filled out with dense silvery blue-gray needles.
How to propagate
How you multiply a juniper depends on what you'd like, since named cultivars won't come true from seed and have to be cloned another way. Don't let that put you off, because a couple of these methods are genuinely easy.
Stem cuttingsModerate
Late fall through winter from semi-hardwood to hardwood growth · Several weeks to a few months to root
Most cultivars come from cuttings so they stay faithful to the parent plant, which is reassuring when you want a known form. Take semi-hardwood to hardwood pieces from late fall through winter, dip the ends in rooting hormone, and settle them into well-drained media, where they take root over several weeks to a few months.
GraftingDemanding
Winter under glass · Weeks to months
Grafting is how upright tree forms and choice cultivars are made when they won't root from cuttings, so it's fine to leave this one to the pros. It's done in winter under glass and takes weeks to months to knit together, which is why skilled growers usually handle it.
LayeringEasy
Spring · Several months to a year
Layering is the gentlest, most beginner-friendly method for the low, spreading kinds. Pin a trailing branch down to the soil in spring and it will quietly root in place over several months to a year, which suits groundcover and shrub forms beautifully.
SeedDemanding
After cleaning and cold stratification · Slow and erratic, often more than a year to germinate
Seed mostly raises species rather than named cultivars, since those won't come true from it. Clean the cones and give the seed a cold stratification, then settle in for a wait, because germination is slow and uneven and often takes more than a year.
Myths
Berries from any landscape juniper are safe to pick and eat like the ones that flavor gin.
Only a handful of species, mainly Juniperus communis, are actually grown as a culinary spice. Plenty of ornamental junipers carry berry-like cones that taste unpleasant and can bring on a mild stomach upset, so please don't assume the berries on a landscape juniper are edible.
You can bring an overgrown juniper back by cutting it hard into the old bare wood.
Junipers can't push fresh shoots from old leafless wood, so a hard cut into bare branches leaves a bare hole that stays. Always prune into green, foliage-bearing growth and reshape the plant a little at a time, and it will reward your patience.