Plant Details

Great Plant Picks - An excellent, slow growing evergreen that will create a perfect low maintenance vertical accent in the garden. Most columnar plants become too large with time or splay and split with age, but this golden columnar yew holds its rigid upright form and can easily be pruned to fit into almost any sized garden. It is one of the most compact and narrowest selections of golden yew. The new spring growth is a bright golden yellow that glows in the Pacific Northwest's often gray weather. This color holds well into summer, eventually becoming a rich golden veneer over the dark green older interior needles. Use it in tight or narrow locations or as an exclamation point in the landscape. Adding it to low mounding shrubs, such as azaleas and dwarf rhododendrons add contrast or plant it with the soft flowing mounds of the smaller ornamental grasses. The gold evergreen needles look great with red, orange, burgundy or purple, for a quieter garden use it with white, cream, or soft yellows. Taxus baccata 'Standishii' is surprisingly tolerant of a wide variety of soils from clay to sandy sites. In poor soils it is best to amend to area with added organic matter and to water regularly until the plants are established. Once established it is quite drought tolerant, but would appreciate an occasional watering during dry summers. As with most yews it can tolerate full sun to full shade, but the golden color vanishes in excessive shade. For the best foliage color give it bright open shade to sun all day. It will tolerate heavy pruning and is one of the few conifers that will sprout from old wood, but typical plants will require very little pruning other than removing the occasional small branch growing out of shape.