Italian Cypress Cupressus sempervirens Stricta

Stricta is the dark green Italian cypress everybody pictures: a narrow vertical mark, tapered at the base and the tip, carrying dense scale foliage the whole way down. Its distinguishing quality is how little ground it takes for the height it gives you, which is why it can line a driveway or sit against a wall where nothing rounded would fit. Use it as a repeated vertical through a Mediterranean-style garden, a formal accent at an entry, or a slim evergreen boundary marker.

Why wet ground is fatal to Stricta

Full sun, and drainage above all. This is a plant of dry rocky hillsides through the eastern Mediterranean, and it will sulk and then die in soil that stays wet, which is the one real failure mode and the reason most Australian cypress fail. Rich damp ground, a lawn irrigation zone and a clay hollow are all working against it. On heavy soil, mound the planting position well above the surrounding grade, backfill with the native soil rather than a bag of rich mix, and water at the base rather than over the foliage. Once established it wants very little from you: heat, dry summers, poor stony ground and reflected glare are all fine.

Space a screen about 1m to 1.2m apart for a continuous dark line, or set columns 2m and further apart where each silhouette is meant to be read on its own. Water new plants deeply but infrequently through the first summer and then step back, because an established cypress resents constant moisture far more than it resents neglect. Keep line trimmers and mowers off the trunk as well, since bark wounds are the main way canker gets into a tree.

Stricta against the selected forms

Stricta is the baseline and comes in small pot sizes suited to volume planting, which makes it the practical choice when you are planting many and prepared to accept some variation between individual plants. Italian Cypress - Cupressus sempervirens Nitschkes Needles is the one to take instead when the planting is a formal matched avenue, because the foliage is finer and every plant is consistent. Italian Cypress - Cupressus sempervirens Glauca swaps the dark green for blue-grey and comes in genuinely large advanced sizes. Pick Stricta for the classic dark Tuscan look, the other two for uniformity or colour. Privacy screening lists the alternatives.

Trimming, tying and feeding

Cypress needs very little cutting. Shorten wayward tips in late spring or summer, always in dry settled weather, and stay in the green growth, because the brown interior wood will not reshoot and any hole you cut is there for good. In heavy rain and wind, mature columns can splay open at the top; a loose wrap of soft wire through the upper section holds them closed and is standard practice among growers. Feed in early spring with a low-nitrogen slow-release fertiliser, and avoid pushing soft growth with heavy feeding or constant water. Cut dead or browning limbs out back into clean wood as soon as they show.

Choosing a size

This plant is available in 4 sizes, from 140mm up to 100L, priced from $16.95 to $649.00 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.