Hinoki Cypress, six years in training

october

Hello Ancientlegend..I keep the tree in a room in a vacant apartment that has no heat. The temps in the room are generally from 32-52 on average throughout the winter. All my trees get light from the windows, however, they receive no actual sun. Just a moderate amount of light from the windows. To keep the tree happy, like most trees. The temperature and the light levels must be cooperative. If you have you tree in an area that is in the 20's F but are giving the tree full sun, that might affect the tree's health. However, if you keep it in the 20's-30's and the tree receives little light, then that is a good balance. It works the other way too. You wouldn't keep a tree in 70-80 degrees F area and not give it sun.

These trees do not like wind, drying winds, especially winter, will cause much interior die back. However, yours is in a sun room so winds are not the problem. From my experience, this Hinoki loves a lot of water. Seems like it can't get enough in the summer. I have always watered this tree very liberally.

If you keep it indoors for the winter, you will definitely need to mist it. If the foliage is crispy and brown, you have problems, if it is still green but sort of course, probably not a big deal. The only brown crispy foliage you should see on a healthy hinoki is in Fall and into Winter. It is then that the tree will lose some foliage just because of the dropping temps. After a couple of months, the browning will stop and the tree will pale out a bit through Winte. Then in early Spring, it should start greening up again.

Since this tree loves a lot of water, a good, well draining soil is essential.

I hope this is useful.

Rob

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Dav4

I keep my Hinoki outside year round...they are hardy to USDA zone 4 and the cold here is not a problem. I just mulch it in on the north side of my garage. Clearly, Rob's tree is doing well, but my opinion is that it is more difficult to keep a hardy tree like this healthy indoors during the winter, even in an unheated room.
Dave

october

I do kind of agree with Dav4. Hinokis are difficult to keep healthy wintering indoors. It has worked for me becasue I mist the tree and make sure the temps and light requirements are always in balance...

Another reason why the tree has done well is because there has been quite a bit of root work as well as pruning and wiring done over the last 3 years. In this case, the tree is doing well because of the protection that I have given it. If I did the amount of work to it that I've done, then exposed it to these winters, I may have not achieved the massive amount of healthy growth.

Rob

eeiko321

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yeah.......thats one fine specimen for a 6 year old tree

that actually looks older than that....

so can you explain how you came about this tree?
any pictures of it when you first started?

the methods you did?

AncientLegend

Thanks Rob and Dave. Hopefully, mine will come back. I got it from a club member who had it for a lot of years. I may have let it dry out too much over the winter which would have been avoided if I had mulched it in outdoors per Dave's suggestion.