Juniperus virginiana 'Grey Owl' is a beautiful, low-growing eastern red cedar cultivar which offers a dwarf, shrub-like or groundcover growth habit at a compact size of only two to three feet tall and four to six feet wide. 'Grey Owl' is also noted for its attractive, silvery or blue tinged scaly foliage, which adds a great deal of colorful appeal to the landscape. This cultivar is cold hardy and resistant to a number of environmental threats, including drought, salt, deer damage, and poor soils.
As a dioecious plant, male redcedars will produce pollen cones through the spring and summer, while female plants produce berry-like structures in the late summer and fall which are highly attractive to native songbirds including the cedar waxwing; this cultivar is an all-female form which a very profuse set of pale blue berry-like cones.
Perfect for grouping to form a low border hedge, Juniperus virginiana 'Grey Owl' has multi-season appeal with silvery evergreen foliage that may turn to shades of brown-green in the winter. 'Grey Owl' is not at all picky about soil type, as long as it's relatively well draining, and works perfectly grown together for foundation plantings and border hedges, as well as in raised beds where they make for an excellent groundcover planting.