A spreading mound of golden foliage, radiating out like a star across your slopes and fronting your beds – the Gold Star Juniper is a wonderful year-round addition to your garden. It’s one that won’t have you out trimming, or one that you will regret buying once it engulfs your beds. Yet it’s broad enough to cover significant areas, rising 3 feet into the air and spreading out with a 5-foot reach. The golden needles stay that way all through the year, and look especially beautiful from late fall to early spring, a time when evergreens become the focus of garden interest, and when they really become the stars of our landscape. Don’t leave your garden lacking in winter beauty or bare of color – the tough and reliable Gold Star Juniper will grow almost anywhere, even at the coast, and thrive with minimal attention from you. You can give yourself a gold star for being smart enough to plant it.

Growing the Gold Star Juniper

Size and Appearance

The Gold Star Juniper is a spreading conifer evergreen with horizontal branches radiating out from the central trunk just like the rays of a star. At first it is a single flat layer, but as it matures it develops multiple layers of branches, rising gradually to about 3 feet tall and ultimately to perhaps 4 feet tall. It spreads outwards into a circle that will become 5 or even 6 feet across within 10 years, so don’t overcrowd it when planting – allow enough room for its development.

The branches are covered in sprays of foliage that is flat against the stems like scale when newly sprouting, but that is otherwise entirely made up of small triangular needles growing around the stems at an angle. These ‘juvenile’ leaves give a fluffy or fuzzy look to the plant, different from the thread-like leaves of many other junipers. The foliage is bright glowing yellow in spring and when newly-sprouted, turning chartreuse to sea-green as it matures. Older leaves are more bluish-green with golden overtones, and even in winter there is a significant golden look to the plant.

The changing foliage colors create a lot of visual depth, with the center of the plant being darker, while the tips are bright yellow. Older plants may develop clusters of blue berry-like cones in winter, but these are not the juniper berries used for flavoring.

Using the Gold Star Juniper in Your Garden

This plant is highly-effective for covering areas of ground, especially on slopes, where it gives good erosion control. Plant it along the front of a bed along a driveway to soften the hard line, setting plants 18 to 24 inches back from the edge. Plant in groups to cover larger areas, allowing 3 or 4 feet between plants. Grow it among boulders and in rock gardens, or in sunny, exposed places, including sea-side locations. Turn a boring and bare slope into a cascade of beauty by mixing the Gold Star Juniper with a variety of other creeping and trailing plants like blue junipers and cotoneasters.

Hardiness

The Gold Star Juniper is very cold-resistant, growing without winter damage in zone 4, and also growing well in just about every part of the country.

Sun Exposure and Soil Conditions

Full sun is needed for good growth and color with the Gold Star Juniper. More than an hour or two of shade each day will turn the foliage more green, and encourage root diseases. This plant needs well-drained soil, so avoid wet and low-lying areas, but otherwise, it grows in just about any soil, from heavy clay to dry sands and gravels, including alkaline soils.

Maintenance and Pruning

Deer won’t eat it, and pests or diseases are not found when grown in the sun with good drainage. Really, there is nothing to do with the Gold Star Juniper but plant it, water each week for the first few months, and then enjoy it. It is drought resistant, so watering is rarely if even needed once it is well-established. We recommend allowing enough room when planting to avoid the need to trim, as this easily destroys the graceful arching and softly-weeping form of this tree. If you do need to reduce the spread, never cut back into branches without leaves, as they will not resprout. Remove the tips of branches by hand, cutting back to just in front of a shoot on the top of the stem, to hide the cut and keep it looking natural.

History and Origin of the Gold Star Juniper

If you are even in Berlin, visit the Späth Arboretum, where there is a very old juniper growing that was collected in 1866 by the French missionary and botanist Armand David in Inner Mongolia. At first this plant was thought to be an unusual form of the Chinese Juniper, Juniperus chinensis. In 1947 the American plantsman Peter Jacobus Van Melle took a deeper look at it, and realized it was a natural hybrid between the Chinese juniper and the savin juniper, Juniperus sabina. Both of them grow naturally in Mongolia. He named it Juniperus x media, a name still in use, but today the name Juniperus x pfitzeriana, the Pfitzer juniper, is more correct.

In 1923 a Pfitzer juniper growing at the D. Hill Nursery in Dundee, Illinois sprouted a branch with golden foliage. This became Pfitzeriana Aurea. In 1961 some of those plants were growing at the wholesale nursery of J.C. Bakker & Sons Ltd. In St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. One plant seemed different to the sharp-eyed grower, and he put it aside, growing pieces of it and studying them for 9 years. It was indeed different, with a lower, more compact habit and with entirely juvenile foliage. In 1975 it was patented as Bakaurea, and that patent (PP# 3,801) expired in 1995. Although never registered as a trademark, the name Gold Star was given to this plant, and that name has stuck.

Buying the Gold Star Juniper at the Tree Center

This juniper has been around a while, but it has stood the test of time and still stands out as a great spreading juniper of medium size, that can be relied on for effective planting and durability. It is always popular and desirable, so order now, because out stock will soon all be gone.