For a fast growing and reliable privacy screen that remains green all year long, Thuja occidentalis 'Hetz Wintergreen' is an excellent landscape choice. It is a robust-growing eastern arborvitae with a strong central leader and narrow upright conical shape. This makes Hetz Wintergreen effective as a hedge or privacy screen. Plus, its texture blends well into most landscapes, and can be easily balanced with finer or coarser trees and shrubs for the right composition.
But before you choose Hetz Wintergreen for your next landscape project, let’s talk about its qualities and characteristics for planting and growing.
Originating as a seedling in the 1940s by F.C. Hetz and Fairview Evergreen Nursery, Hetz Wintergreen is a popular cultivar with no significant negative characteristics. A narrowly conical and robust needled evergreen, it offers dark green foliage year-round without taking the winter bronzing we see in other Thujas. In fact, Hetz Wintergreen can hold its color even in areas that experience heavy snow load. This makes it especially desirable as a privacy screen, windbreak, or tall hedge in colder microclimates.
With an average texture and multi-stemmed dark green needles, Hetz Wintergreen is an ideal background plant. It works well when balanced with finer or coarser trees and shrubs, creating an eye-catching composition. Offering a medium to fast growth rate, this eastern arborvitae grows 12 to 18 inches per year.
Best grown in full sun to partial shade, Hetz Wintergreen prefers moist conditions and will do well once they are established. If planting in colder microclimates or in an exposed location, use thick mulch around the root zone. Otherwise, it has no significant soil requirements, and displays few negative characteristics.
Relatively low-maintenance, Hetz Wintergreen handles pruning easily, but seldom is it required. You should only trim back the new growth of the current season and remove dieback. In its lifetime it can reach a height of 25 feet, a spread of about 8 feet, and display a low canopy that is branched to the ground.
Smaragd is a much smaller tree (semi-dwarf) well suited to urban environments. Its bright medium green foliage is exceptionally dense and visually pleasing. Plus, it is a hardy and relatively low maintenance cultivar that can handle black walnut, clay soil, and air pollution. It takes pruning well and naturally grows in an upright cone shape. Even in winter, the foliage remains bright green, which makes it a versatile arborvitae useful as a privacy screen, hedge, accent, or natural fence.
Your success as a landscape professional depends on developing long-term partnerships with the most reliable growers as trusted sources for high quality plant stock.
Our eBook "The Waverly Farm Playbook for Growing Outstanding Landscape Stock Year After Year" will help you in your search by identifying key characteristics to look for in a grower capable of producing plants that have year over year consistency in health, size, and fullness.