Plant Name

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x Cupressocyparis leylandii (Syn. Cupressus leylandii) from Cupressaceae Family

Common Name

Leyland Cypress

Soil

Deep Sand or Chalk

Sun Aspect

Full Sun or Part Shade

Soil Moisture

Moist

Plant Type

Tapering Conifer Tree

Height x Spread in feet

120 x 15

Foliage

Pointed dark green, grey-tinged leaves

Flower Colour in Month(s). Fruit

Dark Brown female cones

Comment

This bigeneric hybrid was raised by Mr. C.J. Leyland at Leighton Hall, Welshpool, in 1888, from seeds collected from a tree of Chamaecyparis nootkatensis growing to the windward of a tree of Cupressus macrocarpa. It is very compact in habit, grows rapidly and is amenable to clipping. The dark green foliage is maintained to ground level; there is no tendency to become bare at the base and it is absolutely hardy with a tall upright habit.

Unfortunately it is designed for field or large park boundary windbreaks not for small urban back gardens as some people say that it grows 3 feet a year!! If you cut off the top of the trunk, then the side branches exposed to the sunlight then become trunks each racing for the sunlight to reach 120 feet in height!!

Narrowly Conical form. Trim hedging 2 or 3 times in the growing season (without cutting back into the old wood), with the last cut in late summer or early autumn. This means the hedge is going to increase in depth each year.

Contact with the skin may aggravate skin allergies.

This and other cultivars are available from Coblands Nurseries Ltd, Hedges Direct and Palmstead Nurseries Ltd.