Cryptomeria japonica 'Barabits Gold'

Cryptomeria japonica is the sugi, the national tree of Japan, the conifer that lines the approach to the shrines at Nikko in avenues planted four centuries ago and still standing. The species makes a very large tree in time, which is exactly the problem for most gardens, and the reason the dwarf and compact selections have been collected so avidly. 'Barabits Gold' is one of the better ones: a small, dense, upright form whose ascending shoots break bright gold at the tips in spring and hold that colour well through the growing season, deepening toward bronze-green as the year turns.

The cultivar carries a Hungarian name. Barabits is a nursery family from Sopron in western Hungary with a long record of conifer selection, and this plant came out of that work rather than out of Japan, which is a reminder that the sugi has been a garden plant in Europe for well over a century and has thrown selections wherever people paid attention. The species name is the interesting one though: Cryptomeria means hidden parts, from the Greek, for the way the flower structures sit concealed within the scales, and japonica for a tree that is in fact native to both Japan and parts of China.

What sets a cryptomeria apart in the hand is the foliage. The leaves are short awls, spirally arranged and standing out from the shoot on every side, so a branchlet is soft and slightly bristling rather than flat and combed like a yew or a hemlock. On 'Barabits Gold' the new growth pushes upward and outward at the tips, catching light, so the gold reads as a scatter of small flames over a dark interior rather than as a solid yellow mass. That is a considerably more useful effect in a mixed planting than a gold conifer that shouts.

Plant in full sun to partial shade in fertile, moist, well-drained soil; the species dislikes drought and shows unhappiness as browning interior foliage, and a little afternoon shade in the hot Southeast is welcome rather than necessary. Give even moisture, mulch the root run, and avoid dry windy exposures. Cryptomeria are reliably hardy through zone 6 and grow well throughout the Southeast, which makes this one of the rare plants on our propagation bench that asks no gamble at all. Site the shrub where the spring flush can be seen against something dark, and give room to a plant that stays small but not tiny.