Looking in Bitner's book 'Conifers for Gardens', it states that the Gyokuryu is an irregular globe to 3 ft tall and wide. Hope this helps.

A man I thought knew his trees (went to look at his arboretum) sold me 2 of these, saying they were what I had picked out that I wanted. Thought they would be BIG trees with deep green foliage. So far they've grown only about 2 inches in over a year. I didn't consult my Sunset 'bible' when there -- should have. Very frustrating.

go to the ACS website at the link below .... if it isnt there.. use google ...

find the annual growth rate ....

assume that a year or two after it is transplanted.. that it will grow that amount each year ...

so if it grows 6 inches per year ... then just add up the years ... then guesstimate its size ...

good luck

ken

PS: it doesn't look like it is going to be small .... and the name you have is not spelled the same as the database ....

Here is a link that might be useful: ACS

Thank you for the replies ... I can't find it on the ACS website either. I have found a few mentions by google-ing. It is the one that is supposed to be somewhat pyramidal with a darker green than usual.

This specimen is already 4 feet high. The nurseryman said it came from Iseli and gave us a very nice price, so I'm guessing it's not the slow-growing, small one that others have mentioned. I'm just trying to figure out if it's going to get to be 30' or 60'. From ken adrian's post, I'm worrying about the 60' range!

I'm sorry about the frustrating experience in Oregon, cascadians. If I knew enough to link photos to mine, I would. :(

I'll keep checking back to see if anyone has other hints. THe spelling I gave is the one that was on the tag. Thanks again!

its on the ACS site ... go to the database search.. start with crypto ...

then page 2 or 3 .. has your specimen.. as well as growth rate.. and pix ... which i forgot to look at... ken

Thanks Ken! There's some hope ...

Botanical Name: Cryptomeria japonica 'Gyokruya'
Common Name: 'Gyokruya' Japanese Cedar
Status: Established, Registration Unknown
Form: Broad Upright or Oval
Size: Large: > 12" (30cm) per yr, > 15' (4.5m) at 10 yrs.
Color: Medium Green
USDA Zone: 6 (-10 to 0 F / -23.3 to -17.8 C)
Description: (Distinctive characteristics):
Obrizok: Semi-dwarf, irregular globose, dark green foliage.

Here's picture of one of my baby Gyokruyas, bottom right:

greater than 12 inches per year.. zooowwweeee .... better give it a lot of room

ken

Well, I got good and confused, so I called Iseli and the person there was extremely helpful. I'm finding I like conifer people!

C. j. "gyokuryu" will go about 6' in 10 years, so about 12' in 20 years. That's perfect --- and not the monster 12" per year I was dreading.

Looks like I can give it a home with good water. It is supposed to be a very tightly growing, upright pyramid.

Boy, these names are not easy to deal with - I don't know how you all do it. *phew*

I'm a nursery retailer, and this is the information from one of my wholesale providers:

Cryptomeria japonica 'Gyokuru'

sun sun
height 10.0 ft
width 6.0 ft
water average
growth rate average
hardiness zones 5-9
soil well drained soils
flower male and female cones
seed cones
foliage Evergreen
fall color green

Dark green needles arranged in numerous branchlets create a graceful broadly pyramidal habit. Dark green needles. Dense broadly pyramidal form.

To muddy the waters a bit more, the Stanley and Sons catalog says this: "A fast growing conical variety of Japanese Cedar. Leaves are green and coarse and in sprays. Very meaty plant with a tidy look. Will grow 18 inches a year."

Thanks for the new information, everyone. All this multiplication practice is making my head hurt.

gardengal48's description of "meaty, but tidy" nails this plant pretty well. I'm inclined to believe the collective warnings that this plant will grow rapidly, so I'm back to playing the Garden Mental Shuffle.

Now, I'm worrying about width. This plant seems to have 3 major uprights that coexist well in its pot currently and contribute to its meaty, tidy shape. Can I leave them be? And ... are there any guesses about how much room to leave for a broadly pyramidal (instead of a narrowly pyramidal) shape?

I appreciate any and all help.

I'd leave the three leaders (major uprights) for now and let the plant get established. Maybe in a year or two you may want to pick the best of the lot and remove the rest.

tj

Thanks very much, tj!

I hope it's not too gauche to keep posting on my own question.

Monrovia says Cryptomeria japonica 'Gyokuryu' (same spelling as I have) is a dwarf cultivar. Slowly forms a dense, irregular pyramid 5-10 ft. tall, 3 to 7 ft. wide. I might take my chances in the garden after all.

USDA Cold hardiness Zones 5-7. AHS Heat tolerance Zones 1-7. Deep green foliage does not become bronze in winter.

From now on, I'm sticking with well-known dwarf conifers. This episode was scary! Thanks again for everyone's help.

Wherever you put it, keep in mind that it will very likely need water in our area (I'm in Nashville). I grow a few cryps and our spells of high heat and little rain can be "cryppling" ;-). I even had some browning this past winter and I suspect it was due to getting too dry. Many of the big Yoshinos are toast around here after this summer in areas without supplemental water.

There is alot of conflicting info on this variety starting with the spelling. I have been growing this cultivar for about 10 years and all of the postings and conflicting info you have seen could be considered correct. The thing is this plant has a nesting habbit when young and attains height very slowly and then later sends up vertical shoots that grow much faster. If the grower takes his cuttings off the latteral banches that grow nesting and stay smaller then you will have a slow growing plant that will stay smaller about 3 to 4 feet in ten years. The plant is easy to keep at this size with minimal pruning to take the vertical shoots off that will eventually appear on top. I have ten year old plants that are three feet tall that I prune about once a year. Now here is where it gets complicated. Some growers take their cuttings off the top vertical shoots these plants skip the nesting stage and grow straight up with much larger internodal seperation and can grow 10 feet or more in ten years.I do not find these plants nearly as attractive. Look at the attached link for pictures.

Here is a link that might be useful: Gyo Kruyu

"404 Not Found
The requested URL /Cryptomeria_japonica_Gyo_Kuryu does not exist."

" ... has a nesting habbit when young .... "

Could somebody describe what "nesting habit" means?

I can't get my head round the fact that conifers just keep going,that there's no such thing as a dwarf conifer! That gyo whatsit isn't listed in my big book but it says this about C.j. 'Banda-sugi : a rounded irregular shrub,with dense foliage that turns bronze in winter. Height 2m(6ft) Now that would class as a dwarf if it kept within that height.

A nesting habit is usually bun shaped with a depression in the middle. Like Picea abies 'Nidiformis' a.k.a. Bird's Nest Spruce.

tj

Nesting is what TJ said but it means that when one of any of these plants does become a tree with age, the dwarf shrub eventually develops a straight upright leader and from the nest point on, it develops less "nest-like" features and it's growth shifts to becoming a upright tree.

Another good point above is that when growers use the top leaders for propagation the plant becomes shrubby because it develops more mass below and becomes more dense than normal. Same as if you were to top any tree in that the resulting energy is shifted below that cut and the plant broadens more exponentially than it should.

Dax

" ... has a nesting habbit when young .... "
Could somebody describe what "nesting habit" means?

Unless it's a typo for 'nesting rabbit' . . . or 'nesting hobbit'? . . . ;-)

A nesting rabbit sounds more benign.

Thanks for the continuing information; I'm sorry I haven't checked back earlier.

What does "minimal pruning" mean? Does it mean only taking off a certain amount from the leader?

If I do that (my specimen is about 4 feet tall but very wide and with 3 vertical leaders already), then do I have to worry that this thing will be too SMALL for my backyard garden? Or does the fact that it already has leaders mean that I'm back to worrying about it being a monster?

All help is very much appreciated. Good grief, this has been confusing. Maybe I should switch to indoor plants.

My 2 are still very small, hardly any growth. Hoping they will develop those upright leaders and take off. Weird, at the arboretum the trees were huge, very dark red bark and dark green foliage. We said We Want That! and these 2 tiny things were what he sold us. And they are light green. Cute, but not what he had, unless they really change drastically.

On the other hand, have a young Cryptomeria 'Black Dragon' that is really doing well and growing, beautiful little tree.

The gyo kuryus are just little pom-poms lost in the grass ...

I'm on this thread after googling gyokuryu (or close) because in a (wholesale) nursery yesterday, I noted very large 'Black Dragon' to my voice recorder. When I looked at the tag it was Gyokuryu. Later I saw another batch and recorded that these were 5-6' tall and I THINK the first group was larger. Next visit I'll check the sizing and take a pic.

I see this thread is long dormant, but I just googled in here. (I do follow several other gardenweb conversations). I have a 9 yr old, what I was told was a cryptomeria gyokruyo, that had a nursery description of 8' tall. I am in zone 7b and mine is At Least 13 feet high so far. It has a very nice regular tapered shape that would make a wonderful Christmas Tree. While checking other googled sites, I at first thought my plant might have been a mislabeled Yoshino, but I see that most sites show yoshino to be a shaggier finer softer needled plant and a couple of 'yoshino pictures' were probably just other gyokruyos.

I do see that some people just trim them before they start to grow vertically, but I thought I should let you know that under good conditions that I would guess that these can become real trees; perhaps 20 feet...or more.

According to the ACS:

"Cryptomeria japonica ‘Gyokuryu’ is a fast-growing, broadly conical selection of Japanese cedar with coarse green foliage growing in sprays. After 10 years of growth, a mature specimen will measure 12 feet (4 m) tall and 8 feet (2.5 m) wide, an annual growth rate of 12 to 15 inches (30 – 38 cm)."

Anything that grows at a rate of 12-15 inches a year is not gonna be any sort of dwarf!!

And I (and my tree) agree, but I think that you will find that most sites indicate sit to eight feet max height. Presumably, they are wrong.

"Max" height on any conifer is pretty much an oxymoron :-) All will continue to grow until they die or are chopped/fall down, so ultimate height will be determined by rate of growth, growing conditions and age of the plant in question. Even a true dwarf like Picea glauca 'Conica' - a conifer that grows 3" or less a year - will eventually reach 12-15' in height, provided it lives long enough.

If Gyokuryu is not trimmed, it will develop a leader. Snip off the central leader every few years, and it stays squat. I also have mine in deep shade, which helps keep them small. I would say mine are 4 feet tall by 4 feet wide and probably eight years old or so.

Current A.C.S. page. One at Herons-wood was a leaning, rather unlovely tree maybe as much as 20 ft. or more tall before being cut down and started over recently.

http://conifersociety.org/conifers/conifer/cryptomeria/japonica/gyokuryu/

Note that this somewhat similarly named, genuinely dwarf form is also grown - I could easily see them becoming confused in commerce.

http://conifersociety.org/conifers/conifer/cryptomeria/japonica/ryoku-gyoku/