Be Careful Watering Italian Cypress

Q. I am purchasing some Italian cypress as a visual barrier between my neighbors and myself. I understand they are evergreen. Any thoughts?

Italian Cypress can be 40 to 60 feet tall and 4 to 8 feet wide so make sure you have the room for them. General rule of thumb is to use small trees for single-story homes and medium-size trees for two-story homes. It's an added expense if you have to keep pruning them to keep them at the right size.

A. Italian cypress is a big tree so make sure you have room for it, and it is in scale with your home and landscape. It can be 40 to 60 feet tall and 4 to 8 feet wide. It is a good visual barrier but tall!

            Italian cypress is a Mediterranean plant, not a desert plant. This tree came from climates with cool wet winters and hot dry summers so don't water too often but more often than true natives! Put it on a valve that waters palms, fruit trees, other landscape trees and shrubs but not with lawns, flower beds or vegetable beds. It will not like it if it is watered with the same frequency as cacti and native desert trees like Palo Verde and mesquite unless they are watered too often!

One sign they are watered too often is when the growth gets so much that it starts to droop. An occasional drooping branch can be pruned back to the inside of the canopy and removed. It's a problem if you have lots of these drooping branches and it is a poor alternative if you must wrap them with green tape. Learn how to water them properly.

            Italian cypress with long drooping branches is a sign it is getting too much water. Either it is watered too often, or the soil is not draining water fast enough. Hedge shearing (not recommended) keeps them in check but using a hand pruner instead is a better option.

Shearing them with a hedge shears is one method to make them look pretty and keep them in bounds. But that is expensive to do twice a year.

            Enough water should be applied each time to wet the soil to at least two feet deep. The amount to apply varies because of the soil so you will have to play around with the number and size of the emitters. But when you apply water, it should wet the area under the canopy out to the ends of the branches. Normally I will tell people AT LEAST half the area but these trees are narrow and upright so water the entire area.