Spartan Juniper

Spartan Juniper is a long-lived evergreen that can thrive 40 to 50 years or more when given proper care. Its sturdy root system and tough constitution make it a permanent fixture in both home and commercial landscapes.

It grows at a moderate to fast rate - often adding 12 to 18 inches of height per year. Within 5 to 7 years, it reaches its mature height and develops its dense, symmetrical shape.

While not a heavy pollinator plant, its small cones attract birds, and the dense foliage provides excellent nesting and shelter for wildlife.

Yes - it’s naturally deer-resistant. The aromatic foliage and coarse texture make it unappealing to deer and most browsing animals.

Extremely well. Once established, it’s one of the most drought-tolerant evergreens available, thriving in full sun and dry conditions without fading or scorching.

Yes. It performs beautifully in large decorative pots for patios or entrances. Use a well-draining mix, water regularly during summer, and protect the roots from freezing in winter.

Absolutely. It’s a top choice for city plantings, medians, and office park landscapes due to its tolerance for pollution, compacted soils, and reflected heat.

If lower branches thin or growth becomes uneven, prune lightly in early spring to shape and remove dead wood. However, avoid cutting back into bare, brown areas, as junipers do not regenerate from old wood.

Perfectly. Its upright, uniform growth makes it ideal for narrow hedges, screens, and property borders. Once established, it creates an elegant, living wall that requires only occasional trimming.

Its dense, columnar form and rapid growth set it apart. Where many junipers spread wide, Spartan stays tall and narrow, making it perfect for small spaces, formal designs, and modern landscapes that need clean, architectural lines.

When it comes to spacing there is no right or wrong answer. We prefer to give trees the most amount of separation possible and aesthetically this leads to a prettier looking tree at maturity because they develop naturally wider, fuller and more symmetrical canopies. As far as the tree's health is concerned it will not be affected by how closely it is planted to another tree but the shape of the canopy will become taller and thinner and begin to overlap, which will create a continuous hedge. If privacy is not of immediate concern and we are just looking to diffuse the view, then we could plant the trees where they barely touch at maturity.

For example, we could plant Spartan Junipers 7' apart (their mature width is 7') and at maturity their canopies would barely touch or we could space them even further apart than 7' which would leave a gap between the trees. Most of us don't have the luxury of planting trees this far apart and waiting 10-15 years for them to grow together and get privacy. For people that need more immediate privacy then the question to answer is "how long do you want to wait before you have a solid privacy screen?" Most answers that we get to this question will either be immediate or they are willing to wait between 2-4 years before they get solid coverage. Again, there is no right or wrong answer to this question, and it is solely dependent upon how quickly privacy is needed. For example, if a customer is looking for immediate coverage and they are planting Spartan Junipers, then we need to find out how wide the trees that are being planted are and then plant them that far apart. If we find Spartan Junipers that are 2' wide, then we would need to plant them 2' apart from trunk to trunk which allows for the branches to touch immediately at the time of planting. If we are looking for coverage in 3-4 years, then the spacing would be dependent upon how quickly the trees grow per year in width and what size tree the customer decides to start with. Let's look at the previous example of Spartan Junipers that are currently 2' wide. We know that they grow about .5’ per year in terms of width so over 3 years they will be about 3.5’ wide and therefore we would space them 3.5’ apart (trunk to trunk) so that the trees would be touching in 3 years.