Italian Cypress Cupressus sempervirens Glauca

Glauca is the blue-grey Italian cypress. It holds a slim, dense column of scale foliage to ground level, on a footprint narrow enough for a driveway edge where a rounded tree could never sit, and it keeps a tighter, more reliably upright form than seedling-raised cypress. The colour is the reason to choose it: a soft blue-grey that reads cooler than the dark green forms and lifts against rendered walls. Use it in repetition, as entry pairs, a rhythm down a drive, or a slim screen along a boundary.

Sun, sharp drainage and clean cuts

Full sun and sharp drainage, and no negotiation on either. It handles heat, reflected glare off gravel and long dry spells once established, and it resents wet clay, so mound the planting position on heavy ground and keep irrigation off the foliage. For a solid screen line, plant about 1m apart; where you want each column read separately, 1.5m to 2m gives them air. Water new plants deeply once a week through the first summer, then taper off. Keep the base clear of overhanging shrubs as well, because shaded lower foliage thins out and never fills back in. It is evergreen, so whatever effect you build holds through winter as well as summer.

The one real failure mode is cypress canker. It shows as one branch browning off, then a whole flank, with resin bleeding from the stem at the base of the dead wood, and there is no cure once a tree has it. The fungus enters through wounds, so cut only in dry weather, keep line trimmers and mowers away from the trunk, disinfect shears between plants, and remove affected limbs well back into clean wood or take the tree out entirely before it seeds the row.

Which Italian cypress for which job

All three cypress in this range give you the same narrow vertical, and the choice is about colour, stock size and uniformity. Italian Cypress - Cupressus sempervirens Stricta is the dark green classic and the economical way to plant a long run from smaller sizes. Italian Cypress - Cupressus sempervirens Nitschkes Needles carries the most finely textured and consistent foliage, which matters most in a matched avenue. Glauca is the one to pick when you want blue-grey rather than green, and when the job calls for large advanced specimens that read as established the day they go in. Privacy screening has the wider range.

Light trimming and low-nitrogen feeding

Trim in late spring or summer, in dry settled weather, and only into the green outer growth. Cypress will not reshoot from the bare brown interior, so shortening the tips to hold width is the whole job; there is no way back from cutting into old wood. Feed in early spring with a low-nitrogen slow-release fertiliser, because soft, forced growth is more susceptible to canker and splays open more readily. Mature columns can open at the top after storms and heavy rain, which a discreet wrap of wire or soft tie through the upper third prevents.

Choosing a size

This plant is available in 12 sizes, from 140mm up to 200L, priced from $16.95 to $1369.00 per plant. The size shown is the pot the plant arrives in, which is the rootball, not the height of the plant. The smaller pots hold younger plants that cost less each and establish quickly, which suits hedges, screens and mass planting where the plant count adds up. The larger sizes carry several more years of growth on the farm and give height and presence straight away, which is what you want for a single feature position or a screen that cannot wait. Not sure which to choose? Read our guide to fast growing screening plants.