Weeping Podocarpus – a good plant in the wrong place
It was the right plant in the wrong place. It would take 20 years to discover that.
Recently I read an ad by a favorite nursery for weeping Podocarpus for sale and I remembered my son’s joy in landscaping his new home they had just built 30 years ago in Sarasota. I had never heard of a weeping Podocarpus, but loved the regular Podocarpus. I used its stems for design arrangements. Evergreen, straight, tall and columnar in its growth would make it an excellent accent plant for the garage.
He heeded my admonition of planting this weeping specimen at least 3 feet from the house at the corner of his garage. One of the first lessons I learned from long time growers was – plant at least three to four feet from the house, one foot for space to get behind it, one and a half feet for each side of the shrub to fill out, (that comes to 4 feet). I was unfamiliar with the plant and assumed it would grow straight and columnar, with its lovely soft dark green ferny foliage and light green new foliage that drooped at its tips, giving it a soft, desirable appearance.
Slowly, it did indeed grow full and upward, with its droopy leaves touching the ground, looking like a stack of foliage emerging from the ground. My son kept it clipped into a sort of columnar shape, trying to keep it away from the garage. As it aged, the shape got away from him, with a 12-inch trunk that strained to grow an oval and round top. Fighting it was too much and he eliminated it. I mourned the loss of such an outstanding plant. Little did we realize its potential.
Research now has led me to understand the problem. Weeping Podocarpus gracilior, sometimes called the fern rree, can slowly grow into a tree 30 to 40 feet high, which is fine if it grew columnar, but it wanted to fill out into a lollipop. If you use it as a tree, the lower branches that droop towards the ground need to be clipped out to give it a trunk. With its soft, elegant, dense billowy crown, it provides wonderful deep shade.
There a four types of Podocarpus found on the market. P. gracilior, or fern podocarpus, grows into a tree but can be espaliered or turned into a topiary; P. macrophylia has short stubby leaves, great columnar shrub or hedge; P. m. Maki only grows to about eight feet and is good in small places. Used in Bonsai along with the macrophylia; P. henkelii with lusher leaves and seldom reaches 30 feet tall. All are slow growers.
Podocarpus are native to Japan and China, and known as “Buddhist Pine.” We call them “China Yew” or “Southern Yew.” Not being native to North America makes fern Podocarus hardy only up to Orlando or, if protected, higher. Good until 20 degree weather comes.
Grown in full sun or partial shade with well drained soil, needing no irrigation once established, this is a tough tree that slowly grows to have a 2-foot in diameter trunk. Its roots are no problem and rarely lift concrete, so they are safe near driveways. Since surface roots are no problem, you only need to come 6 to 8 feet from walkways, (as long as it is minus its lower limbs). Keep a 10 to 15-foot space from the house. Fertilize three times a year – summer, spring and fall – with quality fertilizer. Their canopy is 25 to 35 feet. With a small yellow not showy bloom and red berries, there are male and female trees. Pollen comes from male trees and can cause allergy problems; females produce no pollen. Propagation is best done by layering or cuttings. The only real requirement in pruning is to remove the lower branches that reduce visibility and ability to walk underneath it. Being shady, underplanting can be lantana (non-invasive), vinca or bush daisy.
Now you can understand why it was a good plant in the wrong place. Being such a slow grower, it was beautiful for 20 years, with a lot of work. That was long enough to raise his family and not worry about landscaping. Then he took to revamping the landscape to sell it.
Listed as definitely non-invasive, weeping Podocarpus is not considered a problem species with a “go” for good to grow in Florida. An outstanding tree. Being evergreen, when trained as a standard, it is urban tolerant, wonderfully shady, good for screening problem areas and a magnificent showy specimen, even espaliered or topiary. It shapes wonderfully with its soft ferny leaves. IFAS notes describe it as, “almost appearing like a large, soft, green cloud.”
This past week I had a problem with my small leaf version of a tropical almond tree. My tall, huge leaf topical almond that turned beautiful colors of red in the fall was totally toppled by “Charley.” The giant circular masses of roots were upended, leaving me a 10-foot ball of roots. It was not a deep rooted tree. I live in the Veterans Parkway, Country Club to Del Prado area and at 2:30 Tuesday, a 5-minute storm hit briefly in my area, knocking out power. My grandson called it ” high winds blowing a small vortex thing-a-ma-jiggy.” I needed to take my daughter to work and couldn’t back out of the driveway. My key focal tree to the planting area in my circular driveway, a small leaf tropical almond, with all the wonderful fall colorings, cracked in half, about 11 feet up in the air, blocking my driveway. My great-grandson pulled it over to the swale when he arrived home from school. Needing to get out, I drove over the mess and back into the garage. I will leave it for my wonderful son-in-law to chop up at his convenience.
Remember to thank a tree for taking in the bad air, carbon dioxide, and giving us good air, oxygen, and if we sit under it for 10 minutes, re-energize us.
Joyce Comingore is a Master Gardener, hibiscus enthusiast and member of the Garden Club of Cape Coral.