Gold Mop Cypress

The Golden Mop Threadleaf False Cypress is the perfect evergreen for low maintenance gardening, since it is tough, easy to grow and has no significant pests and diseases. Just plant it and enjoy it. This beautiful evergreen develops into a compact mound, making it perfect for foreground planting in any location. Use it as part of your foundation planting around your house. Plant it in beds, among rocks and gravel mulch, or at the top of a wall.

It has thin, cord-like foliage in showy colors of yellow, gold and bronze, making this a high impact plant that will have a low impact on your time. It is relatively slow growing, but in time it could eventually reach 5 feet in height and over 6 feet wide. If that is too large, a simple shearing will keep it inside any size-range, as well as encouraging lots of new growth – new growth with bright new color.

This tree has it all. Winter hardy, brightly colored, always neat and trim, trouble-free and needing no special attention, so now is the time to bring easy, all year color to your garden. Because this is such a popular tree, demand is high, so order now and don’t disappoint yourself.

Planting Your Gold Mop Threadleaf False Cypress

To get the best from your Gold Mop Threadleaf False Cypress, plant it in full sun. It will grow perfectly well in partial shade, but the color will not be as intense – more greenish but still attractive. One of the features of this particular plant is that it keeps its strong gold color throughout the summer months, while other forms of the Gold Cypress turn more greenish as the growth matures. It will grow well in almost all types of soil, although a fertile and moist one will suit it best. Do not plant in wet soil, especially if it is also in partial shade, as this can encourage root decay.

Hardiness and Climate

Once established, plants will shrug-off normal summer dryness with no problem, and need no special attention even at the peak of summer. This is a plant that will grow best in colder areas. It is hardy to minus 40 and finds the hot parts of the country a little too hot. This is fine, because northern gardeners are exactly the people who have more limited choices. No matter how cold it gets, the Gold Mop Threadleaf False Cypress can handle it without difficulty and will thrive in the cooler, damper springs and summers too. If you are in a colder area, some shelter from winter sun will avoid the risk of the foliage browning. If it does go brown in a severe winter, this is not a problem, as the new spring growth will quickly emerge and restore the fresh, golden color.

Appearance of the Gold Mop Threadleaf False Cypress

The foliage and form of this plant are its best features. The branches are long and thread-like, as well as being arching and pendulous. The overall shape of this plant is soft and rounded. As it grows the stems arch above each other and spread outwards, so it is always wider than it is round, and always an attractive mounded shape that needs no trimming to keep it looking neat and tidy. The real plus though is the color, which is a great yellow to gold shade over all the plant. In winter the foliage may turn an interesting bronze color, but quickly turn back to gold in summer

History and Origins of the Gold Mop Threadleaf False Cypress

The natural form of this tree is the False cypress (Chamaecyparis pisifera). This is a large tree native to Japan, where it will grow 100 to 150 feet tall in the forests. The wild tree is rarely cultivated outside of some parks or very large gardens. Gardeners have collected many different forms of the False cypress, including a number with thread-like foliage. Plants in this group are often called ‘filifera’, meaning ‘like a thread’.

In turn, some of these have golden foliage, especially in spring, and these have been collected for many years. Golden Mop is considered by most experts to be the very best of these thread-leaf, golden forms of the False cypress. Experts, using carefully identified mother plants, grow our trees to perfection. Avoid other, cheaper golden false cypress, which will have all the defects lacking in this superb plant.

Because of its pendulous habit, even old plants still have foliage right to the ground, so this a great plant to fill a space in any situation. It looks terrific when planted at the top of a wall, where it will even begin to hang-down a little, and a pair will frame a door or an entrance beautifully. To preserve the pendulous form, pruning rather than shearing will keep the plant small, and this is not difficult to do if you simply cut longer branches back to a side branch on a regular basis.

This is also a very useful plant for planter boxes and much less work than annual plants. It will always be colorful in a planter, and will remain compact for many years, needing nothing besides water and the occasional drink of liquid evergreen fertilizer.