Eastern red cedar
Juniperus virginiana
also called eastern redcedar, red cedar, virginia juniper, pencil cedar
The tough green spire of fencerows and old fields from the Plains to the coast: a juniper, not a true cedar, dusted blue with berry-cones that carry waxwings and mockingbirds through winter.
- Type
- Tree · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Green
- Sunlight
- Full sun
- Watering
- Low; it lives where nothing is watered
- Soil
- Any drained soil: limestone, sand, clay, drought and wind
- Feeding
- Gentle all-organic
- USDA zones
- 2a–9a
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Plant out
- 14 days before the last spring frost
- Plant spacing
- 13 ft 1 in
- In-row spacing
- 9 ft 10 in
- Between rows
- 16 ft 5 in
- Square-foot density
- Not suited to SFG
- Root system
- Woody, with a taproot it keeps
- Working depth
- 24 in–5 ft
- Can reach
- 10 ft down where the soil allows
- Spread
- 30–49 ft across, about 1.5–2.5× the width of the plant
It anchors downwards as well as sideways, which is what lets it stand in a gale and what makes it hate being moved. Plant it small: past a few years in the ground a taprooted tree transplants badly, and often not at all.
The habit is Eastern red cedar’s own; the figures are what that habit usually comes to at this size, not a measurement of this species. Roots follow the soil either way: a compacted pan, a high water table or heavy clay stops them well short of any of it, and deep open ground lets them go further.
- When
- Berry-cones in fall once fully blue and frosted-looking; bagworm patrol in winter when the bags hang obvious.
- What to look for
- Cones deep blue with a gray bloom, aromatic when crushed. Spindle-shaped bags 3–5 cm long on winter branches mean bagworms wintering over.
- How to harvest
- Strip a cup of ripe cones by hand for the spice jar (they are the juniper of gin and sauerbraten, used sparingly). Hand-pick every bagworm bag you can reach before May, and bin them, not compost.
- How often
- One fall picking if wanted; one winter bagworm sweep where they occur.
- Storing the crop
- Dried berry-cones keep a year in a sealed jar. The heartwood shavings that repel moths are a sawmill by-product, not a pruning one; the tree itself wants no pruning at all.
- Bagworms Bagworms hanging their spindle-shaped bags in the foliage
- Spider mites Spider mites bronzing shoots in a hot dry spell
- Cedar-apple rust Cedar-apple rust galls sprouting orange jelly horns in spring rain; harmless to the cedar, hard on nearby apples, so plant resistant apple cultivars or keep the two apart
Beneficial predators that hunt this plant's pests — grow their favourite flowers nearby to recruit them. companion plant
- Big-eyed bug Geocoris spp.Hunts Spider mites
A stubby 3 mm bug with enormous wrap-around eyes, working the soil surface and the low foliage for aphids, mites, thrips and insect eggs. It is the main natural check on chinch bugs in a lawn and it is killed outright by insecticide.
- Garden birds PasseriformesHunts Bagworms
Both things are true: birds strip your currants and a brood of blue tits takes several thousand caterpillars out of one fruit tree in a fortnight. Net what you must and welcome them everywhere else — a nest box near the apples is worth more than a spray.
- Green lacewing Chrysoperla carneaHunts Spider mites
Its bristly larvae — "aphid lions" — impale aphids, mealybugs, thrips, and mite colonies, eating hundreds a week. Adults feed on nectar and pollen from small open flowers and overwinter in hollow stems left standing.
- Ladybird (lady beetle) CoccinellidaeHunts Spider mites
The gardener’s favorite ally: adults and their alligator-shaped larvae each eat thousands of aphids, plus scale, mealybugs, and other soft-bodied sap-suckers. Grow flat, open flowers for the adults and never spray a colony that ladybird larvae are already working.
- Minute pirate bug Orius spp.Hunts Spider mites
A pinhead-sized true bug that is the best natural check on thrips, and happily spears aphids, mites, and insect eggs too. It needs pollen when prey is scarce, so keep something flowering nearby.
- Parasitic wasps Braconidae & TrichogrammaHunts Bagworms
Tiny, stingless wasps that lay eggs in or on caterpillars, aphids, and moth eggs — the white cocoons riding a hornworm are their calling card, so leave that caterpillar be. Umbel flowers with shallow nectar keep the adults fuelled.
- Predatory mites Phytoseiulus & AmblyseiusHunts Spider mites
Fast orange mites that hunt spider mites egg-by-egg, and cousins that clear thrips and fungus-gnat larvae. Sold as a biological control for greenhouses; outdoors they follow humidity — mist and mulch, don’t dust with sulfur.
- Rove beetle StaphylinidaeHunts Spider mites
Slim, quick beetles with short wing cases that hunt in soil and litter, taking root-fly eggs and larvae, fungus-gnat larvae, and mites. Mulch and undisturbed ground keep them resident year-round.
The moth-proof "cedar" of cedar chests and closets, and the shelterbelt tree that held the Plains together after the Dust Bowl. The berry-cones flavor gin. One caution: it is the winter host of cedar-apple rust, so orchardists keep it at a distance.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com