Soft Serve® False Cypress

For a lovely, soft look all year long, try Soft Serve® False Cypress (Chamaecyparis pisifera 'Dow Whiting' PP#20883). Use it in your landscaped beds or in containers. The leaves are bright green on top and flecked with silver blue in full sun.

This improved selection of False Cypress showcases its grace and beauty in a compact size. But the lush, conical shape of this Proven Winner® plant is the perfect size for use as a specimen or to create an easy care hedge.

It features the typical soft fern-like branches of the False Cypress with a rich, bright green foliage and a silver blue underside that gives it a shimmer in the breeze. The very uniform pyramidal shape and dwarf size of Soft Serve make it a perfect choice for many landscape applications, both formal and informal.

Like a Dwarf Alberta Spruce, this is a pyramid shaped plant. But Soft Serve has a looser, less formal look with an airier texture. This slow grower has a top height of 10 feet and takes on its wonderful shape with no extra work on your part.

You'll love the performance of this hard-working, beautiful evergreen. Order today!

How to Use Soft Serve False Cypress in the Landscape

There are so many effective ways to use an easy-breezy evergreen pyramid throughout your landscape.

Try a single specimen tree near a staircase behind large decorative pots for a well-grounded seasonal container garden display. Or, use them to create a beautiful moment of transition from a side yard into a back yard.

Create an anchor in a long perennial border or garden bed with a series of 3, 5, 7 or 9 of them, planted in a gentle zig-zag. They'll create a wonderfully soft backdrop for upright shrub roses or hydrangeas.

They would become a prized specimen in a collection of other dwarf evergreens, like the Bird's Nest Spruce, or Baker's Colorado Blue Spruce. Soft Serve's upright habit and texture would add dimension, and present beautifully with other rare and unusual conifers.

Also consider using this plant to create a solid screen to block unwanted views. If you need an 8 to 10-foot, low maintenance hedge, plant Soft Serve measuring 3-feet from trunk to trunk. For a head's start on a hedge, be sure to buy the largest plant size we have on hand.

If you plant this small tree in a large decorative container, you'll gain year-round appeal for years of enjoyment. Use two containers for a sentinel display at your front door.

#ProPlantTips for Care

Select your location so it has protection from harsh winter sun and winds. Soft Serve Cypress is a good plant for cooler coastal ranges and eastern slopes in the hotter, dryer climates. Watch the water in the summer and grow this plant on the moist side.

This compact selection requires little or no pruning, but minimal pruning can be done in summer if desired to maintain it as a hedge.

Soft Serve is extremely adaptable, but prefers moist, well-drained soils with a pH of 5.5 to 6. Prepare your location with an acid planting mix if the pH is high. Amend your planting soil with about 25% Dr. Earths Acid Lovers Planting Mix and fertilize 4 times a year with Dr. Earths Acid Lovers Organic and Natural acid Fertilizer to maintain lower pH.

Once it's planted, water it in well, then place mulch to a depth of 3 to 4 inches. Spread the mulch out in a circle 3 feet around the trunk to keep roots cool and to cut down on surface moisture evaporation. Please, don't let the mulch touch the trunk itself!

Live in a deer area? Soft Serve is known to be deer resistant. It's always best to spray Deer Repellent the day you plant anything in "deer country".

Love birds? You'll be thrilled the way songbirds and quail flock to Soft Serve False Cypress as a winter shelter.

What a gorgeous small tree! You'll appreciate it's beauty year round. Order yours today!