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Platycladus
Platycladus is a monotypic genus with one species, Platycladus orientalis, a small, slow-growing evergreen conifer widely grown as an ornamental tree and hedge in temperate and subtropical gardens. Its key to success is full sun, good drainage and tolerance of drought once established.
Platycladus is a monotypic genus of coniferous trees in the cypress family Cupressaceae, containing only one species, Platycladus orientalis, the Chinese thuja, Oriental arborvitae, Chinese arborvitae, biota or Oriental thuja. It is native to northeastern parts of East Asia and North Asia, but is also now naturalised as an introduced species in other regions of the Asian continent.
It is native to northwestern China, but it is difficult to distinguish the areas where they are native safely from those where they have been introduced. It is distributed in Manchuria, Russian Far East (Amur and Khabarovsk), and now it is naturalised in Korea, Japan, India, Florida and Iran as well. It is also cultivated in many parts of the world in parks, gardens, home yards, cemeteries and for hedges.
Resistant to drought, it is very often used as an ornamental tree, both in its homeland, where it is associated with long life and vitality, and very widely elsewhere in temperate climates. It is suitable for form cuts and year-round opaque hedges, but also forms impressive slender solitary trees. It is also cultivated in tropical to subtropical areas due to its quality to adapt in hot climates albeit not bearing cones due to the lack of winter dormancy temperatures. Several cultivars have been selected, of which 'Aurea Nana' has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Platycladus 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.
