Junipers Juniperus

The other eight have been assessed too; the sources have not taken a side, which leaves them unrated, not cleared.

Cade juniper is rated "MUY DESACONSEJADA" under a garden-suitability method weighing fire evidence, fuel structure, maintenance and origin. Eastern redcedar draws the same rating: its assessment calls all-zone plantings highly flammable from volatile oils and says zone-1 entries should be held to zones 2 or 3. Chinese juniper carries the rating too, though its assessment says little more than that it is a common landscape plant in blue and yellow-green forms. A separate assessment, filed as juniper, names small needle-like leaves, resin and unshed dead branches as what raises the risk.

Invasiveness recurs in three of the genus's own assessments, and maintenance and irrigation, foliage moisture and volatile oils each recur in two. Junipers, in the cypress family, are grown as shrub, groundcover and tree; among eight members measured, height runs from about a foot to fifty feet, and among two members zoned, hardiness spans USDA zones 3b to 4a. Native to the north-central, south-central, northwestern and southwestern United States.

A Forest Service review of one member, Rocky Mountain juniper, found that volatile oil in its lower branches makes that species more flammable, that plants up to three or four feet tall are easily killed by fire, and that it returns only from seed rather than resprouting. The review says this describes that species, not the genus. For a juniper near a house, the ten keep-away ratings and the pattern behind them are the starting point; the eight species without a verdict remain unresolved, not cleared.