Thuja Plicata Little Boy Western Red Cedar

Thuja Plicata Little Boy is an evergreen dwarf cedar with bronze-green foliage that turns orange-bronze in winter. It’s ideal for low hedging and low maintenance slopes, wildlife gardens, and year-round no-fuss containers.

Thuja Plicata is the Western Red Cedar, an evergreen conifer that’s very popular hedging in the UK, and Thuja Plicata Little Boy is a mini version of this excellent shrub. Also known as Western Red Cedar Little Boy, it has attractive greeny-brown aromatic foliage on red-brown compact branches. It forms a neat, rounded mound of foliage of dense flat sprays and stays compact throughout its life.

Western Red Cedar Little Boy is an ideal evergreen for small gardens, rockeries, and containers.

Height and Spread Thuja Plicata Little Boy
This is a small and compact evergreen conifer that only reaches a metre tall by 50 centimetres wide over 10 years.

How Hardy is Thuja Plicata Little Boy
Western Red Cedar Little Boy is hardy enough to withstand minus temperatures if its roots are well drained. Once established, it copes with some drought, pollution, and exposure.

How To Use Thuja Plicata Little Boy
Rockeries, slopes, mixed winter borders, and Japanese style gardens all benefit from this compact conifer. It brings bronze-green tones all year round and requires little maintenance to look good in urban courtyards and country spaces.
Its dense foliage provides shelter for insects and small mammals in wildlife gardens and its year-round colour brings a pop of interest to balcony or patio containers. It’s a real multi-tasker with enough versatility to fit into most garden schemes.

How to Care for Thuja Plicata Little Boy
Like most conifers, Thuja Little Boy is easy to grow and requires little care.
Regular pruning isn’t required because its form is naturally mounded, but you can remove dead or broken branches at any time of the year.
Choose a well-drained spot in full sun to partial shade and water it well until its established. Thuja will grow in the majority of well-drained soils including clay and chalk.
A thick layer of rotted manure around its roots in spring helps trap moisture and provides nutrients for the growing season.