Wilma Goldcrest Lemon Cypress

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The Wilma Goldcrest Cypress is an amazing column of glowing yellow that holds its color perfectly all year round, even through winter. Older parts become chartreuse-yellow, adding depth and intensity to the pure gold of the outer branches. Growing about 6 inches a year it becomes a tall, slender column just a couple of feet wide, but 6 feet tall or more. It can be trimmed or left to grow naturally. It is a wonderful garden accent if you live in warmer areas, or a container plant for summer display that can be overwintered indoors. It also makes a lovely houseplant, thriving in a bright, cool place like a glass porch or sunroom.  

• Glorious golden yellow foliage all year round
• Grows into a compact column of beauty, around 6 feet tall
• Grows well in any ordinary soil
• Best outdoors in areas with mild winters and cooler summers
• Fantastic different-looking houseplant for a cool, sunny room

Grow the Wilma Goldcrest Cypress in full sun, in any well-drained soil or in ordinary houseplant soil. It grows well outdoors in mild winters, hardy to around zone 7. Otherwise grow it indoors in winter in a cool, bright room. Deer don’t eat it (not even reindeer), and it is normally untroubled by pests or diseases. You can trim it just about any time, but it’s best done after spring growth matures a little, and not after early fall. 

We can’t help much with the Frankincense or Myrrh, but for holiday giving, or any other time of year, we sure have the Gold for you. When you grow the Wilma Goldcrest Cypress you get molten gold – solid, pure, vibrant golden-yellow every day of the year – promise. Not only that, you get a beautiful upright accent evergreen, that can be clipped or not, as you choose, and is perfect out in the garden, in a planter, or in a pot standing in your glass porch. It will live for a long time as a houseplant, placed in a sunny, cool part of your home. The foliage is perfect for making holiday arrangements, and in milder regions it is great as a center-piece in a festive tub outside your door. Longer term, out in the garden, it gives wonderful vertical accents wherever you plant it. That could be among shrubs, with other colorful dwarf evergreens, in a rock garden or on a bank, or framing a gate, arch or door. Make it your go-to wherever you think a gold stripe is what you need – which if course is in lots of places.

Growing the Wilma Goldcrest Cypress 

Size and Appearance

The Wilma Goldcrest Cypress is an upright evergreen, and a variety of Monterey cypress. It grows between 3 and 6 inches a year, reaching a height of around 6 feet in 10 years, with a slender form, just 1 to 2 feet wide at the base. Foliage is retained to the ground for many, many years. This plant never stops growing, so in time it will become taller and wider, and could easily reach 15 feet in height, with a width of only 3 feet, with a little trimming. Left untrimmed it will have a more feathery, open look, especially while young. The bark on the stems is a beautiful red-brown, but that isn’t seen much unless you prune the tree to a more open form, or remove lower branches as it grows. Mostly this tree is kept as a dense, narrow column of gold. 

The foliage is very small needles clinging to the stems, protruding slightly, but not sharp. This is technically ‘juvenile’ foliage for this species, rather than tight scales clinging to the stems. It gives the plant a more feathery, lighter look. The color is nothing short of amazing – a glowing, vibrant golden yellow on young branches, darkening a little on older stems to a golden chartreuse, with acid-green tones. This makes the interior of the plant a little darker, actually making the vibrant yellow even more brilliant. The color is held almost unchanged from spring to spring, making this one of the most colorful evergreen in winter. If you crush the foliage it has a strong scent of lemon.

Using the Wilma Goldcrest Cypress in Your Garden

For glowing gold, this is an evergreen that has no equal. Use it anywhere in the garden as an accent, alone or in groups of three. Plant it among shrubs or on slopes among boulders and gravel. It is also a fabulous container plant, indoors or out, looking great mixed with rounded or trailing plants, especially blues and silvers. Grow it indoors in a cool room, with as much light as possible. It can be grown outdoors when there is no risk of frost, and kept indoors during the coldest months.

Hardiness

The Wilma Goldcrest Cypress is considered hardy from zone 7 into all warmer zones, including zone 10 and 11. In zones 7 and 8 it should be planted in a protected, sheltered spot, as extended periods below 20 degrees (Fahrenheit) can cause damage, although the tree will not die. Indoors it grows best in colder parts of the air, with good ventilation when not below freezing outdoors. A bright, unheated porch is often ideal in all but the coldest zones.

Sun Exposure and Soil Conditions

Grow this plant in full sun – shade will turn it greener, and make the growth open and weak. Place on a sunny windowsill indoors, or near a south-facing window. It tolerates salt-spray well, and enjoys mild coastal climates.

Maintenance and Pruning

Generally trouble-free, and usually not eaten by deer, the Wilma Goldcrest Cypress doesn’t have significant pest or disease problems. Trim at any time after the first flush of new growth has matured a little, through later spring and summer, until fall. Avoid trimming during winter.

History and Origin of the Wilma Goldcrest Cypress

The Monterey cypress, Cupressus macrocarpa, grows wild in only a very small area of coastal California, with two small populations, at Pebble Beach and Point Lobos. It is in the slightly unusual situation as being listed as an endangered species, although genetically it is abundant, from plantings elsewhere in California, in Australia and especially in New Zealand, where it loves the climate so much it grows much larger than in California, with trees well over 100 feet tall. 

There are a number of mutations of this tree with yellow or gold foliage. The most well-known is called ‘Goldcrest’, which originated as a seedling in the1940s at Treseder Nursery, in Cornwall, England. That tree has good foliage, but open growth, much like the natural species. In 1987 at the P. Overkleeft Nursery, in s-Gravenzande, The Netherlands, a witch’s-broom developed on a tree of ‘Goldcrest’, as a compact cluster of shorter branches. From those branches the variety called ‘Wilma’ was developed, the more compact and densely-branched plant we call the Wilma Goldcrest Cypress.

Buying the Wilma Goldcrest Cypress at the Tree Center

Whether you want the Wilma Goldcrest Cypress for your garden, for planting in containers, or for a houseplant – perhaps as a gift to a loved one, or yourself – we know you will love it, with golden leaves more beautiful and intense than any other evergreen. Order now, these plants are crazy popular, and our stock sells out almost as soon as we receive it from the grower.