With its very slender but tall growth, the columnar or Mediterranean cypress is part of the typical appearance of Tuscany in particular. The evergreen tree is often found here as a park or avenue tree. The tree, also known as the Tuscany cypress, is also often used for narrow hedges, but is not reliably winter-hard everywhere in our latitudes. If you live in a very cold region, it is better to use more robust hedge plants.
Columnar cypresses offer an attractive privacy screen
Many design options in the Mediterranean garden
The fast-growing Mediterranean cypress is an eye-catcher in every garden, after all, the columnar appearance is very noticeable - this growth habit is completely natural and does not have to be designed with special pruning measures. In its Mediterranean homeland, the tree is often planted in avenues and parks, especially since it is considered to be very easy to care for and grows in almost any soil - for example, the plant is salt-resistant and can therefore also be found in normally problematic coastal soils. Columnar cypresses are among the pioneer trees that colonize fallow land 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 centimetres.
Columnar cypress hedge not hardy
Such a hedge of columnar cypresses should be a beautiful sight - however, 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 quickly freeze to death in very cold winters. This applies in particular to young specimens, which are better off in a tub for the first few years anyway - the older the columnar cypress is, the harder it becomes. However, the tree will not become really frost hardy even with increasing age.
Similar alternatives to the columnar cypress hedge
So if you don't want to laboriously wrap up your columnar cypress hedge every winter and protect it against the frost or hope every year that the temperatures don't fall too low this time either, you should refrain from planting the columnar cypress. However, there is a whole range of trees that look very similar on the outside, which are also frost hardy in our regions and are therefore better suited for hedge planting. These include i.a. Thuja (arborvitae), blue cypress (Chamaecyparis laws), pillar cherry laurel (Prunus laurocerasus) or Leyland cypress (Cupressocyparis leylandii).
tips
When planting columnar cypresses as a hedge, you should cut the fast-growing trees every year, otherwise they can quickly grow 20 meters and higher under the right conditions.