Hinoki cypress ‘Gracilis’

* Common name: Hinoki cypress ‘Gracilis’

* Botanical name: Chamaecyparis obtusa ‘Gracilis’

* What it is: A sleek, slender, upright evergreen with soft, medium-green needles. Habit is irregular and “loose” as opposed to a tight pyramid.

* Size: 12-15 feet tall, 5-6 feet wide in 15 years.

* Where to use: Excellent evergreen specimen for a house corner or used in a triangular grouping of three in an island bed. Also makes a good choice as a tall border plant, including a screening plant, although it’s not dense enough for complete blockage. Full sun or part shade.

* Care: Scatter an acidifying organic granular fertilizer formulated for evergreens around the base of the plant in March. Keep damp the first season, then water is needed only in extended hot, dry spells. Pruning not needed unless it outgrows the allotted space. Then lightly shear or selectively prune at the end of winter. Heavy shearing ruins the irregular habit.

* Great partner: Red daylilies, red or golden mums, and/or golden coreopsis or black-eyed susans are good perennial-flower partners. Golden creeping sedum ‘Angelina’ is a colorful groundcover underneath. Interplant golden daffodils for early-spring color.