Eastern Red Cedar
You're making an investment in your land — protect it. Each kit has a Tree Pro tube and a slow-release fertilizer block for one tree. The tube keeps deer and rabbits off and can double your growth rate; the fertilizer feeds the tree through its first season. Plant with a kit, follow the Growing Guide, and your trees are covered by our 1-Year Survival Guarantee.
Tough native evergreen for thermal cover and screening - grows anywhere, deer won't eat it
Orders placed now are for Spring 2027 shipment
We take orders in advance and ship at the proper time for spring planting in your region — mid-December in the Deep South through the end of May up north. Pick your state under "When Will My Order Ship?" below and you’ll see your exact ship dates.
Get your order in now, we sell out early every season!
Eastern Red Cedar
If you hunt in the South or the Midwest you've probably killed a deer coming out of a cedar thicket. There's a reason for that. Eastern red cedar is a native evergreen that grows just about anywhere, from rocky ridgetops to old fencerows to worn out pasture, and once a patch of them thickens up it becomes the best bedding and thermal cover on the property. The dense foliage blocks wind, holds heat on cold days, and gives deer a place to lay up out of sight. Turkeys roost in them and eat the berries all winter, along with quail, songbirds, and just about everything else.
Cedar is our go to screening tree for anyone in zone 7 and south (roughly Tennessee, Arkansas and Oklahoma on down through the Gulf states and Texas) where Norway spruce struggles in the heat. Planted 5-8ft apart in a row they'll close up into a solid visual screen along a road, a property line, or a plot edge and stay green year round. Cedar also makes an excellent windbreak on the north side of a food plot, which keeps deer feeding in it on the cold windy evenings when they would otherwise stay in the timber. Cedar grows fast in the central and southern states, 1-2ft a year, and slower up north or on poor ground.
Do not put these in tree tubes. Tubes strip the lower branches off a tree and on evergreens they hold too much heat and humidity, so a tubed cedar comes out thin and bare on the bottom, which is the part that's supposed to be doing the screening. Cedar doesn't need protection anyway, deer don't eat it. Where poplar and willow have to be guarded until they're out of reach, cedar can go in the ground and be left alone. Keep the weeds and grass off them the first couple of years with a mulch ring or weed mat and they'll take care of themselves. Cedar handles drought and poor rocky soil better than anything else we sell. It does not like wet ground, plant willows there instead. One thing to know, red cedar is the alternate host for cedar apple rust, so keep them a few hundred yards away from your apple and crabapple trees.
Eastern Red Cedar are covered by our 1-Year Survival Guarantee without a Survival Kit — evergreens shouldn’t go in a tube, so no kit is required. Follow our planting instructions and it’s covered. Full details here.
Variety: Juniperus virginiana
Height at maturity: 30-50ft
Growth rate: 1-2ft per year, faster in the South
Growing zones: 2-9 (grows just about everywhere in the country except south Florida)
Soil type: Very adaptable, thrives in dry, rocky, and poor soils. Does not tolerate wet ground.
pH: 5.0-8.0
Sun: Full sun, tolerates light shade
Berry drop: Fall through winter
Size when shipped: Bareroot approx. 12-18in
Spacing: 5-8ft for a screen or bedding block
Add Late Drop and keep chestnuts falling into December.
By November most acorns have been mopped up and the woods go quiet. Late Drop Hybrids are selected to drop Nov–late Dec, right when deer have the fewest options. Our recommendation: a 1:1 mix.
Questions we get about Eastern Red Cedar
We don't ship on the day you order. We take orders in advance and ship at the proper time for spring planting in each region — from mid-December in the Deep South through the end of May up north. Pick your state below to see your exact window. Orders placed after your region has already shipped go out within 5–10 business days.
A Tree Pro grow tube and a slow-release fertilizer block for one tree. The tube protects the seedling from deer and rabbits and can double its growth rate; the fertilizer block feeds the tree through its first growing season. Every tree we ship is already inoculated with beneficial mycorrhizae, so there's nothing else to add — plant it in the kit, follow the Growing Guide, and it's covered by our 1-Year Survival Guarantee.
Plant with a Survival Kit and we guarantee the tree for a full year. If a tree dies within one year of the day it's delivered, we'll issue you store credit for what you paid for it. You don't have to worry about spending your money on something that may or may not make it.
To be covered, plant each tree with one of our Survival Kits (a Tree Pro tube and a slow-release fertilizer block), keep the tube on, and follow our planting instructions. Email us photos and your order number within a year of delivery.
For all details and conditions, see here: 1-Year Survival Guarantee
