Japanese Yew

Yes, Yew is beautiful and easy to grow, but hold those reins on buying it!!! Not only is it regularly killing herd after herd of hungry w...Read Moreildlife but it can also be fatal to pets and humans. Sadly in Idaho it is not at all UNCOMMON to find a group of 50 or so antelope or other big game all lying dead shortly after having eaten yew either in the wild or in a residential yard. It has become a common landscape shrub, and unfortunately, there are still idiots out there selling it.

Back in Japan it can be either a small pyramidal tree of 20 feet high or more or a large spreading shrub. In the Midwestern and Eastern U...Read MoreSA I have only seen the straight species being a large shrub of several trunks and about 15 feet high and much wider. There are a few pyramidal cultivars, as 'Capitata.' The needles to 1" long are mostly 2-ranked on the twigs. The bark on large specimens is handsome being reddish-brown with some exfoliation. Yews are dioecious so that there are separate male and female plants. The males bear yellow soft cones in spring and loose a cloud of yellow pollen. The females bear the black seed covered by a red fleshy aril. I occasionally see the straight shrubby species here and there, especially at old estates. Many shrub cultivars have been selected from this species, and this or its cultivars have been crossed with the English Yew to produce the Anglo-Japanese (Anglojap)Yews that are cold hardier as the Japanese, to USDA Zone 4, and yet have the fuller, prettier foliage of the English. I have not seen the mother species sold in nurseries for many years.

This plant is grown alot in almost every part of Florida. Handles heavy pruning and topiary well. Can also grow quite large pretty quickl...Read Morey as a tree so I wouldn't recommend grow it next your house. Can make a tall and very dense hedge but is also a nice looking tree espeically when older. Doesn't seem to mind being in dry sand and full Florida sun either.

This is another tree I found in perfect health in Pasadena California, a zone 9b, so it obviously has a bit more climate latitude than su...Read Moreggested on this page. The variety I saw was called 'bright gold'. There is a lot of yellow in the branches so that may be why.