Our farm, Highland Hill Farm, is located in solid clay. We therefore like plants that grow well in dense, heavy, rather impermeable, NOT well-drained soils. One of the arborvitae, the Green Giant,a hybred of the Western Redcedar Tree, or botanically, the Thuja Plicata, is our favorite. This is a great choice for the Bucks County Pa. area. Here is why: It is deer resistant.
The hardiness zone the Green Giant Arborvita tolerates is from zone 5 to zone 8. That's where extreme cold temperatures get down to a temperate level of about 15 or 20 degrees in the winter (Zone 8), but also as low as a frigid level of 15 or 20 degrees BELOW zero (zone 5). Green giants are evergreens, being cedars. Their rapid growth rates can in ideal conditions reach 3 feet per year. Site requirements for the Green Giant Arborvita are sun to partial shade, moist well drained soil preferred (but still does well in clay), and protection from wind, at lest when young.
The Green Giant is a beautiful tree. It has an aesthetically fine form. It's conical, being narrow to broadly pyramidal, reaching from 50 feet to 80 feet in height in southeastyern Pennsylvania. The width at the base of the cone is usually about 15 feet to 20 feet. The leaves are rich green making graceful foliage.
Green Giants make a superb privacy screen. They keep their foliage color year 'round, great for brightening bleak gray winter days with snow on the ground. The cinnamon bright red bark when young turn rich russet brown with time crating a strong contrast with the needle leaves.
Green Giants' flowers, their fruit are pretty little light brown half-inch female cones. (Just so you know, Green giants are females, so its okay to call the cones pretty.) The Green Giant is also a wonderful shade tree, casting a dark, dense shade. The wood is strong too, once the tree is beyond its youth.
This is an arborvita that should outlive even your grandchildren. There are Green Giants out west documented to be over 300 years old. Just don't plant these too close to the ocean, or roads in areas where there's a lot of salt used for snow removal. If you get over 100 inches of snowfall and more per year, no roadside Arborvita planting where salt is used, PLEASE. The greatest soldier of ancient Greece in the Trojan war had his one little weak spot, what proved to be a fatal flaw, and the "Achilles Heel" for Green Giant Arborvitae is hypersensitivity to salt.
A Plant that has the ability to sucker and thus survive a deer attack is the Blackhaw Viburnum. Blackhaw Viburnums (V. prunifolium)are a great plant selection for Tioga County shade plant and bird lovers. The rounded, stiffly branched habit of Blackhaw viburnum reminds you of a Hawthorn without the thorns. Other common names are Sloe, sloe-leaved viburnum, stagbush, shonny. It can be grown as a small tree because plants attain a height of 12 to 14 feet. I like it best as a multi-stem shrub. The dark green, glossy, leathery leaves turn a dark reddish to purple in the fall. Creamy white flowers are borne in flat-topped flower clusters during May. The fruit turns blue-black at maturity. The fruit, which is sweet and edible though rarly used, is nearly half an inch long, bluish black, covered with a bloom, and ripens in early autumn. It contains a small and somewhat flattened stone. The mature fruit make good preserves. The leaves are small enough that they don't pose a raking and cleaning problem. Birds frequent this shrub for feed and shelter. Plants are native and tolerate shade but flower and fruit best in full sun.
Habitat and range: The blackhaw occurs in dry woods and thickets and on rocky hillsides from Connecticut to Florida and west to Michigan and Texas, but is mostly found in the South. On our plant durability list, we rate this a 9 for ease of transplanting and site adaptability. There are also few serious pests that homeowners need to concern themselves with. We have seedling, transplants, and B&B plant to 4'. I prefer transplanting a 3-4' plant.
http://www.zone5trees.com , http://www.highlandhillfarm and http://www.seedlingsrus.com and http://www.greengiantarbs.com
