Juniperus virginiana 'Emerald Sentinel' (Eastern Red Cedar)

Juniperus virginiana 'Emerald Sentinel' is a well-regarded eastern red cedar cultivar which offers a formal and columnar upright growth habit at a compact size of only about 20' tall and eight feet wide. With its dark green, scaly textured foliage that becomes purple-tinged in the winter, 'Emerald Sentinel' adds a ton of formal verticality to the landscape, but is cold hardy and resistant to a number of environmental threats, including wet sites as well as 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 produces bright blue berry-like cones in the autumn months. Perfect for grouping to form a border hedge, Juniperus virginiana 'Emerald Sentinel' has an excellent and distinctive winter color in rusty shades of red, adding even further multi-season appeal to an already great evergreen selection. 'Emerald Sentinel' is not at all picky about soil type, as long as it's relatively well draining, and works perfectly grown together for privacy screens, windbreaks, and border hedges, as well as independently for specimen plantings.