Thuja Green Giant Tree

Fast Growth for Instant Privacy

The fastest-growing evergreen on the market, the Thuja Green Giant has become the go-to tree for landscapers, architects, and municipalities. Especially because it doesn't get the diseases that can affect other evergreens - you simply plant it and watch it grow quickly into a thick, full privacy screen.

Some of the other benefits of the Thuja Green Giant include its dense evergreen foliage that grows to ground level, meaning quick and effortless privacy, and its resistance to deer. Basically, nothing stands in the Thuja's way.

And the Thuja keeps its uniform, columnar shape without pruning. Though many evergreen trees vary widely, the Thuja Green Giant is an arborvitae that naturally grows in a consistent columnar shape, taking very little space but providing maximum privacy.

In other words, the Thuja Green Giant is the ideal privacy hedge. Not only does this tree have a phenomenal growth rate, but its foliage grows so thickly and thoroughly that it's nearly opaque. You'll enjoy your yard or garden in complete privacy, away from your neighbors or traffic from a busy street.

Plant a single row of trees or install a double-staggered row as an extra buffer. The possibilities are endless - either way, you get versatility, adaptability and beauty, all with ease. The Thuja Green Giant is one of our most popular plants for a reason. Order yours today!

Planting in Rows
There are two popular ways to plant your Thuja Green Giants:

 

In a Straight Row	In a Staggered Row

How to Get the Height You Want
Follow this spacing chart when planting in a straight row:

Desired Height	Distance Between Trees
20-25 feet tall	5 feet apart
25-30 feet tall	8 feet apart
30-40 feet tall	10 feet apart

In a staggered row, plant one straight row 8 feet apart, and offset it with another row, starting 4 feet diagonally from the first tree. This gives you instant privacy, and your trees will grow up to 25-35 feet tall.

If you want your Thujas to only get to a certain height, the best way to stunt their growth is to simply snip the top leader once it grows to your desired height.

Living Fence
Many municipal codes and HOA by-laws prohibit the construction of fencing over 6 or 8 feet tall. But if you plant Thuja Green Giant along your property lines, this living fence will exceed the restricted height of constructed fencing, giving you even more natural privacy. A one-time purchase of Thuja Green Giant trees to form a living fence far outlasts the cost of building a wooden privacy fence, which eventually has to be repaired and/or replaced.

Green Screen
You may not need a solid privacy hedge or living fence to outline your property boundaries, but you can also use Thuja Green Giant to block the view of an unsightly object in or outside of your yard. You can plant only one tree, or just a few trees, to grow a green screen that hides an unattractive home, business or landscape beyond the confines of your yard.

Windbreak Buffer
These dense trees protect your home from the harsh winter winds, which minimizes soil erosion and lowers your heating bills.

Specimen Plant
An option is to plant a single tree as a specimen plant, placing it slightly off-center to the front of your home. Its geometric shape in the form of a pyramid nicely contrasts with other landscape plants, and it makes a perfect living holiday tree you can feature in winter. If you string holiday lights throughout the tree, you won't be pierced by sharp needles because Thuja Green Giant has soft foliage.

Wildlife Habitat
Plant a Thuja Green Giant tree and you'll be installing a wildlife habitat in your yard. Its dense evergreen cover offers nesting sites for birds in spring and summer and protection from the elements in fall and winter. The long-skirted foliage even shields ground-roosting birds. In winter, hang suet feeders from the boughs for the birds and have binoculars handy to watch them as they eat.

Holiday Greenery
You'll always have plenty of greenery for handmade holiday decorations when you grow Thuja Green Giant. The fragrant evergreen foliage can be snipped as small sprigs for table decorations or cut as small boughs to make living wreaths, garlands or swags.

Tolerance
• Drought. After their first year of establishment, Thuja Green Giant evergreen trees are drought-tolerant. Although they prosper in slightly moist soil, healthy root systems can withstand short periods of drought.

• Heat: This durable tree stands up to heat and humidity with no ill effects, and its foliage can handle full sun without being scorched.

• Different soils: Thuja Green Giant is adapted to a wide range of soil types -- sand, loam or clay.

Resistance
Many evergreens, including cypress and other arborvitae species, are prone to debilitating fungal diseases, but Thuja Green Giant is resistant to the pathogens that cause these problems. It's also not bothered by any significant insect problems. Even deer pass by this tree without stopping to graze, which is a big plus if you live in a rural area.

When to Plant
You can plant Thuja Green Giant trees any time of year. If you plant during the heat of summer, keep trees well-watered to help ease their transition into your landscape. Apply a 3- to 4-inch layer of mulch to conserve moisture and keep the soil temperature cooler.

How to Plant
You'll receive healthy, well-rooted trees from our nursery. With a lifespan typically exceeding 50 years, the small investment of time to plant each Thuja Green Giant is worth a lifetime of enjoyment.

Where to Plant

Thuja Green Giant arborvitae trees grow in growing zones 5 through 9. Grows in partial shade or full sun. We recommend starting with taller trees in shady spots because they will catch more sunlight and grow faster. Although they're not fussy about soil type, and they prosper in moist soil, they don't like wet feet -- roots that remain in soggy or waterlogged soil. The planting site must drain well.

Preparing the Site
Remove any turfgrass and weeds before planting Thuja Green Giant trees. Clear debris, such as rocks and downed limbs or twigs, and loosen the soil by tilling or spading. It's better to add organic matter to an entire planting area, which encourages new roots to grow outward, instead of amending individual planting holes, which causes roots to stay comfortably within the confines of the hole. If the root system doesn't grow outward to anchor Thuja Green Giant, it can't support the growth rate and mature size of the tree. We recommend using our Organic Planting Mix to amend your soil to the ideal conditions. To naturally add the nutrients your Thujas need to really pack on the growth, we recommend also adding our Root Rocket Fertilizer when planting.

Planting Hole Depth and Width
Planting trees too deeply is a common problem with serious consequences. Dig a hole only as deep as the height of the root ball in the container, but at least twice as wide (four to six times wider is preferable). The root ball should be placed in the planting hole so the level of the container soil is on grade with the soil around the hole. If you loosen the soil in the planting hole deeper than this, after you water your tree, the soil beneath it will settle, causing the tree to sink. Backfill the hole with the soil you removed, and very lightly tamp to firm the soil around the roots.

Mulching
Apply a 2- to 3-inch layer of mulch around each tree, pulling it away from the base of the tree several inches from the trunk in all directions. Use pine needles, shredded bark, wood chips or bark nuggets.

Staking
Unless you plant Thuja Green Giants on a windy site, or during a particularly windy time of year, you won't have to stake most small trees after planting. But if you do need to stabilize young trees, tie them loosely with a soft and flexible material to single stakes that are driven into the ground outside the root zone of the trees.

Watering
Immediately after planting your Thuja Green Giant, water it slowly and thoroughly to allow the soil to settle and to eliminate large air pockets. Continue to water it every few days for the first few weeks if it doesn't rain, thoroughly moistening the root ball. Water them deeply every 7 to 10 days during dry weather.

Fertilizer
During the growing season feed your Thuja ‘Green Giant’ with a balance evergreen tree and shrub fertilizer. To really kickstart your tree's growth, also add a pack of Root Rocket to your digging site. Packed with biostimulants, Root Rocket gives your tree a head start!

Pruning/Shaping
One of the primary reasons Thuja Green Giant is a minimal-maintenance tree is because it never has to be pruned. It grows naturally into a columnar form without needing to be shaped.

History
Thuja Green Giant was brought to the United States in 1967 as a single plant from Denmark -- a hybrid produced by crossing Western Red Cedar (Thuja plicata) and Japanese Arborvitae (Thuja standishii). This hybrid tree was planted at the U.S. National Arboretum, where it was observed to have exceptional landscape merits. Horticulturists propagated it and taxonomists appropriately named this cultivar 'Green Giant.'

Trivia
• As a member of the Cypress plant family (Cupressaceae), Thuja Green Giant shares characteristics with other plant family relatives, such as flattened branches and evergreen, scale-like leaves.

• Thuja Green Giant's parentage includes an arborvitae tree, which is a plant family relative of a North American native arborvitae. In the 1500s, French explorers took one of these native trees to Paris -- the first North American tree to be introduced in Europe. After a tea from the bark and leaves prevented scurvy on sea voyages, the tree was named arborvitae, which means 'tree of life' in Latin.

• Clemson Cooperative Extension includes Thuja Green Giant on its list of 'Trees of Strength.'