Brabant is much faster growing and a much larger plant than Smargard. Color is a lighter green and is not near as dense unless sheared. Will easily grow 2' or more a year if it is happy with your site. Keeps a central leader nicely and is denser than typical species arborvitae. You can keep it pruned to maintain the size if you like. Also it will need a fairly moist soil as they suffer like most arborvitae in drought years.

Select, how would you say it compares with 'Hetz Wintergreen'? I deal with the twin worlds of native restoration landscaping, where we always use straight-species T. occidentalis, and the more general landscaping world, where I sometimes will select a cultivar. I like the strongly single-leadered aspect of 'Hetz'and find it to be a good substitute for the species in most respects-something I would never say about such common items as 'Smaragd', et al. Thnx.

+oM

go to google.. develop the full latin cultivar name.. then flip to images ... see link below

thats how i SEE how things look ..

as far as i am concerned ... its just another thuja ... lol ..

but it looks like it has more potential for height.. than smargard has in my MI garden ... which is what select said ...

also seems to be a british plant... where are you???

ken

https://www.google.com/search?q=Thuja+Occidentalis++Brabant&biw=874&bih=745&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=10SdVZmEFoW4sAWoi6zwBQ&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ&dpr=0.9#imgrc=_

Tom,

Brabant ends up a decent bit wider than Hetz Wintergreen and not quite as nice color in the winter (but not ugly either). We planted a screen of them around 12-13 foot apart and within 8 years they were around 20' tall and had completely filled in the distance. We get ours from Midwest Groundcovers in Illinois and they are the only supplier of Brabant I know of in the Midwest.

Of course Brabant was advertised as an upright grower that is 12-15' tall and 6-8' wide which they will reach even before the 10 year mark. The 6-8' wide is particularly misleading as they really start branching out when they are 7-8 years old and do not keep the tightness of Hetz Wintergreen. They shear easily and perform very well as a hedge plant also.

Worst part with the screen we planted was that we lost the whole thing during the drought of 2012. They were planted at a client's place around 20 miles away and that particular location received only about 2" of rain during 12-15 extremely hot weeks during the summer. Come the next spring 2/3 were dead and that fall all except a couple were gone. Needless to say they need a decent moisture content in the soil or supplemental irrigation (like most arborvitae) to pull through the dry years.

I like the fact they keep a central leader and you never see snow damage on them. If you're going for a good tree-like or larger arborvitae I would recommend 'Sherman' (or Shermannii?). From the old Sherman nurseries here in Iowa a spontaneous seedling began growing in the gravel next to their shop (if I'm remembering the story right). They propagated it and produced them for a number of years before closing. Looks similar to 'Techny' but a little more true green in color and incredibly drought tolerant. We have a row behind a ball diamond here and they made it through the 2012 drought (without any irrigation) like nothing happened while nearly every other row of arborvitae had terrible drought stress or dying plants. Last I knew Bailey Nurseries still sold bare-root plants but they may have stopped growing them now.

Bruce

Thanks again, Bruce. As you may know, I'm a huge fan of the straight-species item, and it is true that while they are often found in wet areas, ie "cedar swamps", Like up at my land, they can do amazingly well in more upland areas, including pure gravel, especially if it is crushed limestone. This species is a calciphile.

Where I can (and certainly in my own doings), I tend to deal with the species, but in my job, landscape cultivars are often called for. This is one such example (and is in conjunction with my arrowwood viburnum query over in "Shrubs"). So thanks for that info. Pretty tight situation such that I may end up going with the Hetz. But it's good to learn of some more tree-like cultivars out there. So my paradox in terms of T. occidentalis is that I like the actual tree best, but also like to use closely-spaced rows of such utterly non species-like cultivars as 'Woodward Globe' as perfect, never-need-shearing hedges. I guess that spans the gamut!

+om