Juniperus Species, Ashe Juniper, Blueberry Juniper, Mountain Cedar, Post Cedar

When you see this tree you know you are in the Central Texas hill country . According to the Texas forest service , This tree is native ...Read Moreand Beneficial to wildlife . Here in Central Texas there are large stands of this tree we call it cedar , and they can also be found in forest of mixed deciduous trees . They are cleared in massive scales to build new subdivisions, shopping centers and roads. In my case I love them because they are on the edge of my land and the hummingbirds love to nest in the deep inner branches where wind , sun , and heat are minimal. I have one female hummingbird that has been banded on my property that comes back every year and makes her nest in one of the trees. She now has her offspring returning to my property that have been born in previous years . Their downfall is the winter pollen these trees produce on epic scales . In our area when there is a grass fire the bottoms of these trees burn and the top usually stays alive and they turn into a typical shaped tree (single trunk large crown) but when they are not hit by fire they usually have the form a very large bush. Here in Central Texas people use the wood for fence posts and porch supports .

This Juniper, much like Juniperus virginiana, can be weedy and aggressive in areas, but well grown specimens are impressive and neat tree...Read Mores. It's also very useful in places where little else will grow and it's toughness is admirable. It seems to prefer limestone derived soils but will grow in moderately acid soils if planted there. Mine has done very well on a dry slope with moderately acid soils and has no problems with my winter temperatures which have been as cold as -5°F since I planted it.

This Juniper is native in a spotty fashion to a roughly 250 mile wide swath from Monclova, Mexico to Branson, Missouri. So it's native to MO, OK, AR, and TX in the US and Coahuila in Mexico.

The species as a whole is clearly hardy to zone 5, especially since no native woody plant that grows with it in the Ozarks isn't at least zone 5 hardy and I've had no problems at all with any plant I've propagated from wild Ozark populations surviving -15°F.

I do not grow this tree, but it seems to have good points and bad. The durable wood is often used as fenceposts, but often the trunks bec...Read Moreome branched and twisted before growing large enough for commercial use.

Found along limestone outcrops of plateaus and mountains, also in oak-hickory forests. Sometimes forming large thickets.

The range is from the Ozark Mts of MO, AR and NE. OK and in southern OK in Arbuckle Mts, central TX, including Edwards Plateau..also into NE Mexico

Local wildlife eat the sweetish berries.

Named for William Willard Ashe, pioneer forester of the US Forest Service, who first collected it in Arkansas

The Ashe juniper, a true Texas native, is often blamed for our problems in the Texas Hill Country. In the rush to place blame on the tre...Read Moree for our problems, politics has often gotten ahead of science.
Yet our anguish is the result of decades of land degradations. This tree is only a symptom of our problems, not the cause. Some would even go so far as to say it is nature's band-aid...here to heal that which we continue to destroy.
Nature has no schedule for her healing ways. However, we do. We must learn to work with the tree to effectively restore our Hill Country soils, diversity and springs.