Cultivation
Monterey Cypress has been widely cultivated away from its native range, both elsewhere along the California coast, and in other areas with similar cool summer, mild winter oceanic climates. It is a popular private garden and public landscape tree in California.
When planted in areas with hot summers, for example in interior California away from the coastal fog belt, Monterey Cypress has proved highly susceptible to cypress canker, caused by the fungus Seiridium cardinale and rarely survives more than a few years. This disease is not a problem where summers are cool.
A number of cultivars have been selected for garden use, including 'Goldcrest', with yellow-green, semi-juvenile foliage (with spreading scale-leaf tips) and 'Lutea' with yellow-green foliage. 'Goldcrest' has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.
Monterey Cypress is one of the parents of the fast growing cultivated hybrid Leyland Cypress, the other parent being Nootka Cypress.
The foliage is slightly toxic to livestock and can cause miscarriages in cattle. Sawn logs are used, by many craftspeople, some boat builders and small manufacturers, as a furniture structural material and a decorative wood because of its fine colours. It is also a fast, hot burning, albeit sparky (therefore not suited to open fires), firewood.
In New Zealand, where it is almost always referred to as Macrocarpa, it is most frequently grown as a shelter tree on farms, usually in rows or shelter belts. There, growing in more favorable conditions than its wild range, in the absence of many native pathogens, it often grows much larger, with trees recorded at over 40 m tall and 3 m in trunk diameter known. The timber was used for fence posts on New Zealand farms before electric fencing became popular.
Macrocarpa cultivars grown in New Zealand are:
- Aurea Saligna—Long cascades of weeping, golden-yellow, thread-like foliage on a pyramidal tree
- Brunniana Aurea—Pillar or conical form with soft rich-golden foliage
- Gold Rocket—Narrow erect form with golden colouring, slow-growing
- Golden Pillar—Compact conical tree with dense yellow shoots and foliage
- Greenstead Magnificent—Dwarf form with blue-green foliage
- Lambertiana Aurea—Hardy upright form tolerating poor soil and climate conditions
Read more about this topic: Cupressus Macrocarpa
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