Eastern Red Cedar

Tough native evergreen for thermal cover and screening - grows anywhere, deer won't eat it Orders placed now are for Spring 2027 shipment We take orders in advance and ship at the proper time for spring planting in your region — mid-December in the Deep South through the end of May up north. Pick your state under "When Will My Order Ship?" below and you’ll see your exact ship dates. Get your order in now, we sell out early every season! Eastern Red Cedar If you hunt in the South or the Midwest you've probably killed a deer coming out of a cedar thicket. There's a reason for that. Eastern red cedar is a native evergreen that grows just about anywhere, from rocky ridgetops to old fencerows to worn out pasture, and once a patch of them thickens up it becomes the best bedding and thermal cover on the property. The dense foliage blocks wind, holds heat on cold days, and gives deer a place to lay up out of sight. Turkeys roost in them and eat the berries all winter, along with quail, songbirds, and just about everything else. Cedar is our go to screening tree for anyone in zone 7 and south (roughly Tennessee, Arkansas and Oklahoma on down through the Gulf states and Texas) where Norway spruce struggles in the heat. Planted 5-8ft apart in a row they'll close up into a solid visual screen along a road, a property line, or a plot edge and stay green year round. Cedar also makes an excellent windbreak on the north side of a food plot, which keeps deer feeding in it on the cold windy evenings when they would otherwise stay in the timber. Cedar grows fast in the central and southern states, 1-2ft a year, and slower up north or on poor ground. Do not put these in tree tubes. Tubes strip the lower branches off a tree and on evergreens they hold too much heat and humidity, so a tubed cedar comes out thin and bare on the bottom, which is the part that's supposed to be doing the screening. Cedar doesn't need protection anyway, deer don't eat it. Where poplar and willow have to be guarded until they're out of reach, cedar can go in the ground and be left alone. Keep the weeds and grass off them the first couple of years with a mulch ring or weed mat and they'll take care of themselves. Cedar handles drought and poor rocky soil better than anything else we sell. It does not like wet ground, plant willows there instead. One thing to know, red cedar is the alternate host for cedar apple rust, so keep them a few hundred yards away from your apple and crabapple trees. Eastern Red Cedar are covered by our 1-Year Survival Guarantee without a Survival Kit — evergreens shouldn’t go in a tube, so no kit is required. Follow our planting instructions and it’s covered. Full details here. Variety: Juniperus virginiana Height at maturity: 30-50ft Growth rate: 1-2ft per year, faster in the South Growing zones: 2-9 (grows just about everywhere in the country except south Florida) Soil type: Very adaptable, thrives in dry, rocky, and poor soils. Does not tolerate wet ground. pH: 5.0-8.0 Sun: Full sun, tolerates light shade Berry drop: Fall through winter Size when shipped: Bareroot approx. 12-18in Spacing: 5-8ft for a screen or bedding block