Mr. Bowling Ball Arborvitae

Mr. Bowling Ball® Arborvitae (Thuja occidentalis 'Bobozam') delivers a plant that maintains a perfect spherical shape without you ever touching pruning shears. This dwarf cultivar grows into a naturally dense, bowling ball-shaped evergreen reaching just 2-3 feet tall and wide, making it a great solution for tight spots that need year-round structure. The soft, lacy foliage swirls around the rounded form in bright sage-green that holds its color beautifully through brutal winters and scorching summers alike. Hardy in zones 3-7, this slow-growing charmer sits so close to the ground that it appears as a perfect sphere resting on your landscape, with foliage reaching right to the soil line.

Plant Mr. Bowling Ball wherever you need punctuation marks in the garden—it makes a good full stop, flanking entryways, marching along walkways, anchoring foundation plantings under low windows, or creating rhythm in perennial beds where it provides structure after everything else dies back. Its compact size makes it outstanding in containers on patios and decks, and it's the perfect choice for small-space gardens where every square foot counts. This native North American cultivar adapts to a wide range of soils (even heavy clay), thrives in full sun to part shade, and shrugs off deer browsing. Once established, it tolerates brief dry spells, resists pests and diseases, and needs just one feeding in early spring to keep its vibrant color strong. This is genuinely plant-it-and-forget-it evergreen excellence.

The backstory makes this cultivar even more intriguing—it originated from a witch's broom (a dense cluster of abnormal growth) discovered in the mid-1980s by legendary nurseryman Joe Stupka in the Linesville Cemetery in Pennsylvania. He found the original broom mostly dead with just a few living twigs, but saw its potential and propagated it as 'Linesville'. Joe Zampini of Lake County Nursery later adopted the plant, gave it the cultivar name 'Bobozam', and brilliantly trademarked it as Mr. Bowling Ball in 2003—a name that perfectly captures its unique form and has made it a garden center favorite ever since.

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