Hollywood juniper has sculptural impact

Garden designers often talk of, and celebrate, the power of trees with sculptural impact. And it’s not hype. A tall columnar arborvitae or Italian cypress says “classic formality.” A yucca spiking up above a sturdy trunk conjures-up references to the Southwest desert. Put in a hardy banana and you are welcoming your visitors into the steamy mood of the tropics… even in the cool of a Pacific Northwest summer.

But no plant has the power to set the mood, really many moods, like Hollywood Juniper (Juniperus chinensis ‘Torulosa’). Want an Asian look? The twisted limbs and contorted trunk beside a large rock or water feature becomes Chinese or Japanese. Are you into the garden style of the Mediterranean? The zig-zagging branches and ruddy bark look like they belong in a palazzo in Palermo. Want to accent a red tile terrace and brightly painted garden furniture and create the ambience of Tucson or Sonora? Make this tree a garden focal point in your hacienda courtyard.  And as for this juniper’s common namesake - Hollywood: standing at an entry, it shouts out Sunset Boulevard, ever-ready for its close-up, Mr. DeMille. Simply stated, give Hollywood Juniper a script and it will play the part.

These moderately slow growing plants take time to reach their full impact. But set one out from a two or five-gallon nursery can this summer and you’ll have the fun of watching its natural form

become more and more pronounced as it ages. And you won’t have much to do. Happy in almost any soil, just give Hollywood Juniper a place where it gets plenty of direct sunlight and good drainage. Water it well the first couple of summers if the season is unusually dry. No need to prune much and you’ll have few worries about pests and disease as you watch the branches, filled with coarse but handsome dark green foliage, jut one way and another as the plant winds its way up to a height of 15 feet, spreading out 10 or more. These trees live for many years.

Give Hollywood juniper a large, deep pot and it will happily spend its first decade in a container, gracing a patio, a stately, albeit unusual, plant at your front door, on a terrace, or announcing the garden gate. If you do need to prune off a branch that obstructs movement or invades a view, cut the branch off carefully with sharp shears or a pruning saw as flush as possible to the next largest branch. Spray the wound with a dark brown or dark olive green paint to seal and camouflage the cut. This is best done in late autumn or early winter and the branches you take off can figure into some unusual Holiday greens or your own attempt at Ikebana. They are long lasting indoors, in water.

Little known in the Pacific Northwest until recently, mature Hollywood Junipers are not a common sight here. But in Madison Park we’re lucky to have two specimen plants in the newly renovated garden in front of the Windermere Real Estate office at 4015 E. Madison Street. It’s worth a stroll to have a look, marvel at the shape of these ancient looking trees and pat their rugged trunks in admiration.

The Windermere offices fill a well maintained, early 20th Century house, likely part of the old McGilvra Addition. The building grows in its historic importance by the year and the firm has done well by it. But likely, early on, when the house was new, the homeowner had the daring and farsighted notion to put one of these plants at each corner (east and west) close to

the sidewalk in the front of the house. Today we can all say “Thank You” as we enjoy these beautiful examples of living, horticultural history.

STEVE LORTON, a Madison Park resident, is former Northwest Bureau chief for Sunset Magazine.