Conifers have had a bad press recently, they've even been talked about
in parliament . So when you mention them to many people and suggest that
they should be planted in the garden, the initial reaction is often as if you're
suggesting they join you in a spot of devil worshipping and that they may wish
to install their own altar.
The problem is that the word "conifer" has become
synonymous with Cupressus x lleylandii, that bully boy of the horticultural
world.
Lleylandii
form large, fast growing dense evergreen barriers, so they should be ideally
suited to the task of hedging. However Cupressus x lleylandii is a forest
tree that will quickly and happily grow to 70 feet tall or more with a proportional
width. Now imagine that I was selling hedging plants and you had a garden about
30 feet by 40 feet. I then advise you that you should plant fast growing trees
that can attain 70 feet, at intervals of 2 feet all around the garden. You would
probably not take this advice!
But this is exactly what has happened over the last 25 years or so, especially
on new housing estates. Lleylandii are just not suitable except for very
tall hedges in very large gardens.
But I come not to bury conifers, I come to praise them!
Conifers
are a very large and diverse group of shrubs and trees. Like all large and
diverse groups, there are good ones and there bad ones. Pretty ones and ugly
ones. Some that are excellent in some situations, but useless in others, and
like all garden plants they are best when situated appropriately.
Conifers have the advantages that they are evergreen and tend to look
the same all year round, this is also the disadvantage with conifers, if they
are planted in the wrong place. They can appear dull and unchanging if planted
in groups without other types of plants. Planted in the right place, they can
give structure and permanence to your garden. They are architectural plants
and should be used as such to give your garden a "skeleton" or framework
around which you arrange the other more seasonally varied plants.
One of the main reasons, I like conifers is for the colour of the foliage
of certain varieties. I love glaucous blue leaves, and there are some conifers
that have the best examples of this in the plant kingdom. The colour comes out
best in full sun, in partial shade, they tend to revert to green.
How to use conifers:
To give a permanent backdrop for more delicate flowers or the
wispy seed heads of ornamental grasses.
Grow the ground-covering types to suppress weed growth. They
are excellent at this and are more easily kept in check than many ground cover
plants as they grow from a single point, rather than rooting as they go. This
also means that you can grow spring bulbs up through the foliage away from the
stem without interfering too much either bulbs or conifer.
Grow ground covering types to hide manhole covers while allowing
access if needed.
If you do want to use them as a hedge, then mix them in with
other evergreens such as Cotoneaster or Pyracantha to give a less
formal but nonetheless very effective barrier.
Block out an unwelcome or ugly view.
Don't have too many conifers or other evergreens in a garden or
planting, no more than about a third of the total.
Buy conifers online
Top Conifers
There are literally thousands of different named varieties of conifers and
it can be very difficult to track a particular one down that may not be very
widely grown. Frequently, you can go for similar but different named variety
that will not be so different, ask advice from the garden centre or nursery
if you're not sure.
The coloured (i.e. not just plain green) varieties tend to colour up best
in full sun.
If you have less than ideal conditions, use the following as a guide (but
not a guarantee!)
Chamaecyparis - withstand exposure and dry conditions
once established.
Juniperus - Withstand cold-exposed conditions,
not keen on wet.
Picea - withstand cold-exposed conditions and
also wet-moist (not soggy)
Thuja - often the hardiest withstanding most conditions,
wet-moist, dry, cold-exposed, shade.
Abies nordmanniana "golden spreader" -
grows to a pyramid shape about 3ft high by about 3ft wide with green-yellow
needles that turn bright gold in winter.