Evergreens make wonderful gifts, because they are long-lived, durable and permanent parts of any garden. However, some evergreens grow large and need a large garden to live in. So at The Tree Center we have a wide range of dwarf evergreens that fit into any garden, or can even be grown for years as container plants, so you never have to worry about your gift growing bigger than its welcome. One of our personal favorites is the Divinely Blue Himalayan Cedar, which is such a beautiful plant you might decide to order two – one as a gift for a friend or family member and one as a gift for yourself.

With its soft needles in the perfect shade of silver blue, covering branches that spread out into an irregular mound, just seeing this tree will take your blues away. This tree will form a mound of branches, growing to about six feet in ten years and adding a few inches a year after that. It will never outgrow even a small space, yet it will always look beautiful. It will spread to about the same width as its height, avoiding the crowding some wide-spreading plants can create. To offer something really special, so the receiver of your gift will know how much you care, we asked our skilled gardeners to attach the tree to a strong trunk a few feet tall, to make a taller tree. This produces a plant with more options, and therefore a better gift with wider appeal.

Growing Divinely Blue Deodar Cedar Trees

Because our Divinely Blue Deodar Cedar Trees are taller, they can be used to give more height in a bed, without overpowering the surrounding plants. They can be a lovely foreground plant in a larger bed, with smaller plants placed beneath them. It can be used as part of the foundation planting around a home, where it will add height without blocking windows. It could also make a spectacular accent in a small garden, where something larger would be out of scale, and where many small shrubs are simply ground-hugging. This beautiful tree adds an extra dimension to any space. It will also live for years in a container, so it is great for someone who only has a terrace, courtyard, or a balcony.

Appearance

The Divinely Blue Himalayan Cedar starts the season with soft, pale grey green new shoots, a delicate start to the season. As the soft new foliage matures it turns a stronger, darker silver blue color, making a striking feature. The branches are horizontal, but the tips are more pendulous, so the overall effect is of a soft mound of delicate form that is not strongly pendulous, nor is it upright in a pronounced way. This unusual form makes the tree special and rare.

Planting and Initial Care

Your Divinely Blue Himalayan Cedar will grow all across the warmer parts of the country, from zone 6 to zone 9, so it is hardy to minus 10 degrees, and does best in cooler, rainy areas that do not get very hot and dry in summer. Plant your tree in a sunny location to develop the strongest blue coloring and avoid planting on low-lying damp areas where the soil is often wet. Otherwise your tree will be happy in all kinds of soil, even sandy soil, and once established this is a drought-resistant plant. It does not suffer from any serious pests and diseases and does not need any trimming.

History and Origins of the Divinely Blue Deodar Cedar Tree

The ordinary Himalayan Cedar is seen in older gardens, where it grows into a tall tree that can be 100 feet tall and with a 10 foot thick trunk – far too large for any but the biggest garden. However, it has beautiful soft needles that cover the slender stems, and even in wild trees these can be bluish-green in color. By careful selection that leaf color has been developed into a stunning steel blue that is the perfect complementary color to everything in your garden.

As the name suggests, this tree grows wild in the Himalayan Mountains, from Kashmir all the way into China. The Chinese have grown the wild form of this tree in their parks and gardens for hundreds of years and the tree has been known in Europe and America since the early 19^th century. This unique tree was discovered by Bill Devine, who had been a grower at a nursery in Maryland and continued his passion for plants after he retired. His name of course suggested the name for the plant, and it certainly lives up to that name! Interestingly, the official name is given to this tree by the conifer expert Don Howse is ‘Devinely Blue’, but this soon shifted to ‘Divinely Blue’ to most growers and gardeners.

Buying Divinely Blue Deodar Cedars at The Tree Center

Of course, in order to grow such an unusual plant, our growers have to be careful to take stem pieces from properly identified parent plants and join them to short stems of specially grown seedling Himalayan Cedars. It is not possible to grow this plant from seed, so don’t be fooled by plants labeled ‘Blue Cedar’ – they won’t be the true Divinely Blue Himalayan Cedar. Indeed they will most certainly grow into large trees many, many feet tall.

So, no matter if you are looking to for an accent plant for a garden bed; a dynamic evergreen for foundation planting around your home; an exciting gift plant for family or friends; or something very different to grow in a large pot, the Divinely Blue Himalayan Cedar will have you anything but blue, admiring this elegant addition to your garden. This unique tree is rarely available and is only produced in small quantities, so our stock is limited. To give a unique and special gift, order now.