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Juniperus procumbens
Creeping juniper is a low, spreading evergreen conifer that forms a dense mat up to 2 to 4 metres wide but only 20 to 30 cm tall. It is grown mainly as a ground cover in full sun and well-drained soil.
Juniperus procumbens is a species of shrub in the cypress family Cupressaceae, native to Japan. This low-growing evergreen conifer is closely related to the Chinese juniper, Juniperus chinensis, and is sometimes treated as a variety of it, as J. chinensis var. procumbens.
Several cultivars have been selected, the most widely grown being 'Nana', a slow-growing procumbent plant, which in the UK has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit. Others include 'Bonin Isles', a strong-growing mat-forming plant collected on the Bonin Islands, and 'Green Mound', which may just be a renaming of 'Nana'. A variegated plant sold under the name J. procumbens 'Variegata' is actually a cultivar of J. chinensis misnamed.
The status of Juniperus procumbens as a wild plant is disputed. Some authorities treat it as endemic to high mountains on Kyūshū and a few other islands off southern Japan, while others consider it native to the coasts of southern Japan (north to Chiba Prefecture) and also the southern and western coasts of Korea.
California Juniper · Canary Islands Juniper · Chinese Juniper · Common Juniper · Alligator Juniper · One-seed Juniper · Western Juniper · African Juniper · Drooping Juniper · Temple Juniper · Rocky Mountain Juniper · Flaky Juniper
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Juniperus procumbens by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
