Thuja occidentalis Filiformis - Canadian Arborvitae

Airy and surprising, the Thuja occidentalis 'Filiformis' is an extraordinary Canadian thuja with a delicate and romantic personality. It forms a beautiful bush with a rather unruly habit, rather arborescent, covered with light and fine vegetation, which seems frayed. Tender green in spring, its weeping branches that sometimes touch the ground turn green-yellow in summer, before turning bronze in winter. Its modest size allows it to fit in a small garden, alone or happily associated with flowering shrubs. It is a very hardy conifer, not demanding on soil type. It can tolerate a moderately dry, even poor and chalky, well-drained soil, but requires a very sunny exposure that will densify its foliage.

The Thuja occidentalis, also known as Eastern Arborvitae or White Cedar, is sometimes called the Canadian White Cedar or Broom. It is an evergreen conifer of the cypress family native to northeastern North America. It is distributed over a vast geographical area that perfectly reflects the plasticity of its living conditions, from swamps to cliffs, hostile environments that discourage many other competing species. In nature, it reaches a height of 15 to 20 m (49 to 66ft), adopting a beautiful conical habit, and a trunk covered with a very decorative, reddish-brown peeling bark. It is a very hardy species, very well adapted to temperate climates and poor, humid or occasionally dry soils. Its almost rot-proof, lightweight, fragrant and easily flammable wood lends itself to many uses. It has given rise to more than 300 cultivars that have been selected for their ornamental qualities.

The 'Filiformis' variety, rarely used in our gardens, stands out for its modest size, its slightly anarchic, broadly cone-shaped habit, with a weeping crown carried by a ramified trunk. It also exhibits a very unusual foliage for a thuja. At maturity, it will reach about 2.3 m (7ft) in height with a spread of 1.1 to 1.5 m. This conifer has an aromatic foliage when crushed, consisting of loose bunches of very weeping, flattened branches, covered with scale-like leaves 3 to 5 mm long. Imbricated in each other, the leaves give the twigs a flat appearance. The foliage is tender green and shiny in spring, acidic green to yellowish green in summer, then it takes on a dark green color largely tinged with bronze in winter. The cones, slender, brown at maturity, are 8 to 12 mm (1in) long and 4 to 5 mm (<1in) wide, composed of 4 or 5 scales.

The 'Filiformis' Western Thuja, with its exceptional ornamental qualities and ease of cultivation, deserves to be more frequently planted. Very undemanding, it adapts to everything except dense shade and waterlogged soils. Its airy and slightly blurry silhouette seems lively, full of lightness, destined to enhance any flowerbed. It can be adopted without hesitation alone in a small garden, on a large slope or among rocks. It can also be installed near a body of water. The graphic qualities of conifers naturally attract themselves to the design of a contemporary garden, which prefers the aesthetics of shapes, silhouettes and textures over the waltz of blooms. These plants, with their reassuring permanence, durably structure a flowerbed, mark the paths, border the terrace, easily replacing the strong presence of trimmed boxwood or holly. They go well with mahonias or disheveled grasses with a very complementary temperament. The key is to play with volumes and colors.