Species Cupressus sempervirens
Form Naturally columnar
Growth Conifer · minimal trimming
From £245 the pair
Species N° 10 — Italian Cypress
Cupressus sempervirens · the Tuscan original
The tree of the Tuscan road. At your door.
The exclamation mark of the Tuscan landscape — the tree our growers drive past on every road to the nursery. Naturally columnar, so the pencil is the tree rather than a training, asking little beyond full sun and sharp drainage — and sold here as true matched pairs, grown in Tuscany and photographed side by side before dispatch.
Matched pairs from £245 · pencils to 2.7-metre columns
How to chooseThe landscape ourplants grow up in.
Every road our growers drive to work is lined with this tree — the dark exclamation mark of the Tuscan hills. Unlike everything else in the catalogue, the pencil is not a training: the column is the tree, held by genetics rather than shears, which is why it asks only a light annual tidy and delivers the smallest footprint in topiary — maximum height per square foot, the trump card of the small-garden playbook. The card below is the specimen sheet.
One vertical line.Three registers.
The renditions of the column — one pinned frame. Scroll.
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The classics
Stricta and Pyramidalis — the avenue tree at doorstep scale. Solis & Marek (£245–£535) is the tightest pencil in the range, the line the Tuscan roads are drawn with; Eron & Valea (£375–£670) is Pyramidalis, the classic pencil cypress, a shade fuller in the shoulder. Either pair turns a plain doorway into a gatepost.
The Totem tier
Alto & Luce (£245–£535) — the accessible entry to the column. Four sizes from 1.1-metre starters to near-two-metre pairs, the same genetics and the same Tuscan fields as the rest of the range, priced so a first flanked doorway starts at £245 the pair.
The tall & the gold
Pyramidalis runs to £670 at a full 2–2.5 metres — proper avenue scale for gates and gable ends — while Aurek & Lumi, the golden pencil (‘Goldcrest’, £615 at 2.5–2.7m), draws the same line in gold. And for the column with a twist, Fenn & Arlo carves it into a spiral (£375–£705).
Five renditions.One Tuscan line.
Drag through the range — matched-pair prices including VAT, banded by size.
Drag · Scroll
The wider market maths — what topiary years cost and why — is in the topiary prices guide.
Living with cypress.The short manual.
Almost nothing to do — provided you obey the two rules.
Full sun and sharp drainage — the whole rulebook
Give it the sunniest position you own; shade thins the column and is not negotiable away. And know the honest truth about hardiness: winter wet is the enemy, not cold. Sharp drainage everywhere, pots on feet from October, saucers banished — the container guide maps the full regime.
A light annual tidy — nothing more
The column is genetic, so trimming is a tidy rather than a sculpting session: a pass with shears over any soft stragglers keeps the line crisp. The one rule — never cut into bare wood, because cypress does not regrow from it. Fingertip growth only, and the pencil stays a pencil.
Stake the young column
On exposed sites, give young columns a discreet stake for the first season or two while the roots take hold — a tall slim tree is a sail until it anchors. Once established, the cypress that lines every windswept Tuscan ridge holds its own line without help.
Water the first year, then ease off
A deep soak once or twice a week through the first spring and summer while the rootball establishes — the first-year guide maps it week by week — then established plants in the ground largely fend for themselves. Pots stay on the weekly finger-test for life.
Every pair is Tuscany,exported.
Our growers do not have to imagine what this tree becomes — they drive past the finished article every morning: avenues of black-green columns running up to hilltop farmhouses, planted by great-grandfathers, standing beside the olives they have flanked for a century (that companionship is a chapter of the olive guide). A cypress pair from these fields is not styled after the Tuscan landscape — it is a piece of it, lifted, matched and pointed at your front door. The whole vertical family lives in the pencil collection.
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Understandingthis species.
The questions buyers actually ask, answered by the growers.
Do Italian cypress trees survive UK winters?
Yes — with one condition, and it isn't the temperature. Established Italian cypress shrugs off British cold; what kills it is winter wet standing at the roots. Give it sharp drainage — grit in the planting hole, pots on feet from October, no saucers — and it is as hardy here as it is on a frosty Tuscan ridge. Drainage, not cold, is the decider.
How tall do Italian cypress grow, and how fast?
Our pairs are supplied from 1.1 metres up to 2.7-metre columns. In open ground a happy plant adds roughly 30–60cm a year in its early decades — brisk for a conifer of this quality — and can eventually pass ten metres over a lifetime; in pots growth is slower and easily held at the height you bought. Crucially, it climbs without spreading: the gain is all vertical.
Do Italian cypress stay slim?
Yes — the column is genetic, not clipped into existence. A pencil cypress holds its slim silhouette for decades, broadening only slowly at the base, which is why it owns the smallest footprint in topiary: maximum height per square foot of ground. A light annual tidy over any soft stragglers keeps the line perfectly crisp.
How much do Italian cypress trees cost?
As matched pairs including VAT: Stricta pencils £245–£535, Totem pencils £245–£535, Pyramidalis — the classic pencil cypress — £375–£670 up to 2.5 metres, classic cypress spirals £375–£705, and the golden ‘Goldcrest’ pencil £615 at 2.5–2.7 metres. The collection starts at £245 the pair — the most affordable route to a flanked doorway in the range.
Can Italian cypress grow in pots?
Very well — it is one of the classic container trees of the Mediterranean. Use a generous frost-proof pot with real drainage holes, loam-based compost cut with plenty of grit, pot feet from October and a weekly finger-test on watering. The pot actually helps enforce the species' one rule — roots never standing in water — and slows growth to a manageable pace.
How and when do I trim an Italian cypress?
Barely, and lightly — the column shapes itself. One tidy a year, in late spring or early summer, running shears over any soft growth that breaks the line. The single hard rule: never cut into bare wood, because cypress will not regrow from it — stay in the green, fingertip growth only, and the silhouette keeps itself for decades.
Do Italian cypress need full sun?
Yes — this is the non-negotiable. Italian cypress is a full-sun Mediterranean tree: a south- or west-facing open position keeps the foliage dense and the colour deep, while shade thins the column and dulls it. If the spot you have in mind is shaded, choose a shade-tolerant species instead; if it bakes all day, nothing suits it better.
What's guaranteed when I buy an Italian cypress pair?
Every pair is photographed side by side at our UK depot before dispatch, delivered kerbside on a pallet in 14–21 working days (the driver calls an hour ahead), and covered by the 7-day Matching Guarantee, the 6-month Thrive Guarantee — replacement at 50% of the single-plant price if a plant fails despite reasonable care — and Lifetime Care Support. Full terms at delivery & returns.
Matched beforeyou ever see it.
Two plants, selected together in Tuscany, raised as twins — so the symmetry at your door is grown, not approximate.
Your actual pair, side by side at our UK depot, before the pallet is built.
7-day Matching Guarantee, then the 6-month Thrive Guarantee through establishment.
Lifetime Care Support — a photo gets grower answers for as long as you own the plants.
