Genus

Cedrus

The Cedrus genus in the Plotwright catalog - 2 species: Atlas cedar, Deodar cedar. Open any for hardiness, native range, wildlife value, and growing guidance.
Filters
Atlas cedars (Cedrus atlantica) in native montane habitat on a rocky slope at Tichoukte in the Moroccan Middle Atlas, showing the characteristic flat-topped, tiered crowns of mature trees
Cedrus atlantica
Atlas cedar
Atlas cedar is a large, long-lived evergreen conifer native to the Rif and Atlas Mountains of Morocco and the Tell Atlas of Algeria, where it forms forests at 3,839 to 7,218 feet elevation (Wikipedia). In cultivation it develops a stately, broadly conical to flat-topped crown with silver-blue to grey-green needles, reaching 98 to 115 feet tall - a genuinely majestic specimen tree for large gardens and parkland. The honest catch is scale: this is not a suburban garden tree. It grows too large for most plots, casts dense, permanent shade beneath its canopy, and drops barrel-shaped cones that can be heavy and messy. Surface roots lift paving and outcompete underplanting once the tree matures.
Tree
Full sun
Low water
Zones 6a-9b
Climate: narrow
Focal point
Structure
Deodar cedar (Cedrus deodara) - conical evergreen habit, drooping leader and branch tips, pendulous blue-green foliage, large specimen conifer.
Cedrus deodara
Deodar cedar
A graceful, large evergreen conifer from the western Himalayas, prized as a specimen for its broadly pyramidal form, gently nodding leader, and sweeping branches whose tips droop in soft, weeping curtains. Slender blue-green to gray-green needles are borne in dense whorled clusters on short spurs, and barrel-shaped upright cones sit on the upper branches, ripening from blue-green to reddish-brown and disintegrating on the tree. In the landscape it typically reaches 30 to 50 feet (with much greater potential in age and ideal sites), needs real room to spread, and is the most heat- and warmth-tolerant of the true cedars - thriving in zones 7-9 where spruce and fir falter, but it does want good drainage and is not a small-garden tree.
Tree
Full sun / Part shade
Moderate water
Zones 7a-9b
Climate: narrow
Focal point
Structure