| General Description | Thuja occidentalis `pyramidalis` is a tall pyramidal shaped tree with bright green foliage and grey/reddish-brown bark. This tree is often used for private screening, hedges and mass plantings. It has a clearance of 0.3 m from the ground and is suitable for planting under power lines. |
| ID Characteristic | This plant stands between 6–9 m tall and 2.5–3 m wide in a natural pyramidal shape with bright green glistening foliage and grey, reddish-brown bark. |
| Shape | Tall natural pyramidal form. |
| Landscape | Commonly used for mass plantings hedges/screening and adding vertical and colourful accent to the landscape. |
| Propagation | Soft-wood cuttings can be taken from the current year’s growth, the wood must be taken when it is ripe and must be grafted to seedlings. |
| Cultivation | Grows best in typical moist conditions with rich, dark, organic soils. This tree will not grow to maximum potential in dry conditions or in soils with high alkalinity. |
| Pests | This tree is susceptible to bag worms, leaf miners and leaf mites. Bagworms: Chemical controls are effective if applied during early stages of bagworm development. Leaf miners: Cover seedlings with floating row covers to keep adult flies from laying eggs on leaves. Keep covers on all season if the pests are numerous, hand pick and destroy any mined leaves, spray neem oil and remove egg clusters when they are visbile. This plant also suffers from blight. |
| Notable Specimens | Forest Heights Community, Burlington, Ontario. Notre Dame Secondary School, Burlington, Ontario. |
| Habitat | Horticultural Origin. |
| Bark/Stem Description | The outer bark is grey and the inner ridged bark is reddish-brown. |
| Flower/Leaf Bud Description | The buds are brown, very small, rounded and are in opposite pairs located along the stem towards the middle of the leaf. |
| Leaf Description | This trees leaves are soft, petite, and scale-like with bright green foliage. This creates a glistening, soft-textured, confined pyramid of leaves. |
| Flower Description | Monoecious, the male and female flowers are usually borne on separate twigs or branchlets; they are tiny, terminal, cone-like bodies. Male flowers are yellowish and produce growth from branchlets near the base of the shoot; female flowers are pinkish and appear at the tips of short terminal branchlets.
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| Fruit Description | Yellowish-green cones that are thin with 6–8 overlapping scales that when ripe turn brown. They’re 10–15 mm in length and 4–5 mm in width. |
| Colour Description | Bright green, soft-textured foliage with grey and reddish-brown bark, male flowers are yellow and females are pink. |
| Texture Description | The foliage on this tree is soft and scale like, and the bark is very ridged. |