White cedars

I live in Eastern Nebraska. I really enjoy planting a variety of trees on my place. Pretty much planting my place to a forest. I was looking at planting some white cedars. I see they grow well to the north east of me but I've never seen them growing around here. Anyone have any info on them growing in nebraska?

They are critical here for white tail deer in the winter for browse and a "micro-climate". I spend countless hours planting them, starting them from seedlings in raised beds and fencing them once planted in the woods. The bunnies and even mice will get them when young. In about 100 years they make GORGEOUS lumber that will last forever. They hold a special place in my heart. Red Cedar, not so much.

If you don't fence them, don't bother.

Exactly. The little white pine eating vermin will get them

Not sure how they would do that far west. They are originally a bog species.

I've heard they like boggy conditions. We have clay soils so that could be an issue.

They are very popular in the ornamental trade worldwide so I'm sure they are adaptable. Maybe won't grow to the big tree we have here but I know several growing on clay.

Around here they will grow in places other trees wont grow.not only in wet but in dry too.

they will grow in clay as I've planted about 2000 of them about 30 years ago on a place I owned at the time that was hilly with clay soil and with some sandy areas mixed in. The grew fine in both soils.

Didn't have to fence them as the deer didn't touch them. They'd lay under them but they never chewed a single one.
All depends upon what the have available for food locally.

Around here they like limey spots

That's been my experience as well. I have several large white cedars on my property that are about fifty years old. I also have grown several from softwood cuttings. I have a thick layer of topsoil over heavy clay, they do well.

Deer ignore them.

That's exciting, I'm going to plant a bunch then and see what happens.

like boco said they will grow anywhere here

I find this interesting. Around here, the "browse line" is about 5-6 feet. The deer eat everything they can reach standing on their hind legs in the winter.

same here 160user , anything they can reach

I prefer red cedar and have planted a lot of them this week. Something different. I like the diversity but I'm doing it mostly for screening and wind protection. Good luck with your White Cedar.

Might pay to visit the Morton arboretum in Nebraska City to see what does well in your area.

I don't really see any benefit of the White Cedar over the red cedar. I guess deer might enjoy eating on white cedar more. And white cedar (arborvitae) don't cause cedar apple rust.

It'll be interesting to see how white cedars come through this strange winter

https://extension.umn.edu/yard-and-garden-news/winter-damage-evergreen-trees-and-shrubs

My white cedars are set to arrive this week.
I still have to decide whether to spread them out or put them in a ~clump on my 90 acres.

My neighbor haa a bunch that look sick now--winter burn I'm thinking.

Eastern white cedar is a powerful medicine.

Good luck with the cedars AJE. The deer leave mine alone for the most part except the bucks want to rip them apart once they got big enough. I usually leave a little buckthorn by them to protect them. Prevents them from getting the backside if they still rub them and keeps the tree alive longer. When I didn’t, they were killing multiple trees as they worked down the line.

I have oaks, spruce, hazelnut, highbush cranberry, and willow ready for pickup on Thursday. Friday I will start the planting. Hooked up the planter today and did a test run. Gassed up the tree auger and dug out the tree spades. Hoping for decent weather.

I have 100 3'-4' white cedar coming soon....I'm going to put 1 hardwood stake by each one, and some cheap deer netting to help them out.

Hope the netting works

Good for boat building should you want a wooden boat. Light and rot resistant. Some people call it juniper.

White cedar (Thuja occidentalis - sp? because thats from memory and not spell checked) grows well a lot of places far from the natural range. They are also known as “arbor vitae” because of an early European colonists who were dying of scurvy and the Indian folk told them they would be cured if they drank cedar tea. Worked so well, they started calling it “tree of life” or arbor vitae.

Up north they are important for winter deer cover and browse, but other places, south of the tiaga ecosystem deer are not very interested in them presumably because there is better browse available, and winters are not so harsh that the thermal cover becomes important. I am currently down in the southwest tip of Indiana for the eclipse that is happening tomorrow, and I saw a row of them looking very healthy today at an abandoned homestead, not even a mile from a cypress stand. I see it thriving all over the upper midwest, and suspect it will do well most places when planted. Interestingly white cedar is a cypress family plant (Thuja), but they don’t grow naturally very far south of the tiaga biome except in isolated locations that are mostly low wet soil spots.

They provide a number of resources like bark that makes nice baskets and makes a great waterproof roofing/siding for homes, very straight splitting strong lightweight wood, the wood also makes a fantastic friction fire base board (one of my favorite combinations is white cedar base and mullein flower stalk spindle for hand drill fires), and the tea as I alluded to earlier contains vitamin C. And those just a few of the many resources provided by this tree.

There is a lot more to know about white cedar, but I dont want to write a book here…

Probably a good idea.
I get my 1st ever white cedar tomorrow.

Mine I planted last year survived and put on a little growth . Excited to see what they do this year! Good luck

That's awesome.

I planted my first ever White Cedar yesterday--55 of them. It was cool. Hopefully I can get them to do well and not be totally destroyed by deer

Hopefully the deer don't rub 'em all up on you. I know deer love to rub my eastern red cedar, I don't know about white cedar.

White Cedar is winter browse for deer here. If you don't fence them the deer will eat them. They grow VERY slow and most of mine have grown 4-6 feet in the last 20 years or so.

White cedar and western red cedar are very closely related to each other (many cedars aren't).
I just curious, what does the wood of white cedar look like?

I don't know. Deer rarely let it get that big.

As for red cedar, I think I only have eastern red's-at least that's what I always figure.

If mine grow to (and stay at only about 5 ft tall) that'd be fine with me because I'm growing the White Cedar for deer not timber. I just don't want the deer to KILL them. It would be cool though if some make it tall.
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It is GORGEOUS! Lots of character, very light and buoyant and extremely rot resistant.

Cool. So I guess white cedar have many benefits