{"id":4171,"date":"2012-12-05T12:00:10","date_gmt":"2012-12-05T17:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/?p=4171"},"modified":"2012-12-05T11:53:15","modified_gmt":"2012-12-05T16:53:15","slug":"franky-boy-arborvitae","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/2012\/12\/05\/franky-boy-arborvitae\/","title":{"rendered":"Franky Boy Arborvitae"},"content":{"rendered":"

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'Franky Boy' arborvitae in Late November at UT Gardens, Knoxville, TN<\/p><\/div>Franky Boy oriental arborvitae (Platycladus orientalis<\/em> \u2018Franky Boy\u2019 [syn Thuja orientalis<\/em>]) is a dwarf evergreen conifer currently in hot demand among collectors. What immediately catches your eye is its thread-like foliage which changes color from one season to the next. Its evergreen foliage adds a fine textured look to the landscape.<\/p>\n

The new spring growth is fountain-like, e.g. it bubbles out from a central growing point and weeps downward. In the spring and summer threaded foliage is chartreuse colored. In the fall and winter it morphs again, first with a bronze tint or later to copper orange. By early spring the light green color has returned.<\/p>\n

Over a 10 year span, expect Franky Boy to grow 4 to 5 feet tall and 3 to 3 \u00bd feet wide. Oriental arborvitae is safely winter hardy to USDA hardiness zone 6 and may be borderline in zone 5-b if protected from wintry winds, heavy snow, and ice storms. Pruning, while rarely necessary, can create a tight, more compact shrub.<\/p>\n

Franky Boy thrives in full to partial sunlight. A moist, compost rich, well-drained soil is ideal. It becomes heat and drought tolerant after a 2-year establishment period. Plant Franky Boy in a large patio\/deck sized container or utilize it as an accent or textural shrub as a portion of the foundation planting. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Franky Boy oriental arborvitae (Platycladus orientalis \u2018Franky Boy\u2019 [syn Thuja orientalis]) is a dwarf evergreen conifer currently in hot demand among collectors. What immediately catches your eye is its thread-like foliage which changes color from one season to the next. Its evergreen foliage adds a fine textured look to the landscape. The new spring growth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[444,809,299,674,617,800,604,774,630,646,1,113,455,162,642],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4171"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4171"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4183,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4171\/revisions\/4183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}