After such a feast of autumn colour, the garden would now be dull and fairly empty without evergreen shrubs and small trees. Fortunately we’re spoiled for choice. Inevitably, some plant breeders have developed unpleasant cultivars with yellow leaves suggesting the plants are on the point of death through nitrogen starvation. And others, with blotchy white marks, look as if they’d been sprayed with paint.
With so many genuine evergreens, aim to enjoy a few different shades. This is where conifers come into their own. Pinus mugo Humpey grows to 80cm, and with a final spread of 150cm its mound of dark green needles happily define the corner of a bed. Another low-grower is the bun-shaped fir, Abies balsamae Hudsonia.
Junipers widen the colour palette and can be pruned to whatever height and spread you fancy. This includes Juniperus chinensis Pyramidalis with silver-green needles. If you fancy a blue-green effect, you could choose J sabina Tamariscifolia instead. Try to get both male and female trees for the bonus of clumps of blue berries. My six junipers are all fruitless males – how’s that for luck?
It’s also worth dipping into the mahonia treasure trove. Mahonia Smaragd has fresh green leaves through the year, and, like most mahonias, is as tough as old boots. But a lot of mahonia leaves turn an attractive red in winter, including M aquifolium Apollo, whose dark green leaves start to blush at this time of year.
Barberries are another truly hardy genus, with some evergreen species. Berberis x stenophylla has arching branches that make a particularly attractive screen.
Evergreens are ideal for providing permanent shapes in the garden as well as screening a dark corner or wall or being used for hedging. Planted in the middle of a garden, however, their dense foliage absorbs more light than you can spare just now, and they cast a dark shadow. So pruning to raise a shrub’s canopy and thinning upper branches could be a useful approach, giving you a view down the garden. You can plant bulbs underneath too. As a rule, spring bulbs grow beneath deciduous trees where there’s plenty of light before bud burst, but light and airy evergreens are just as good.
A bare stem should be roughly one third of the tree’s height. Start at the bottom, removing lower branches or stems, then work up the remaining two-thirds of the trunk, thinning the branches. Stand back and assess your handiwork again and again, checking whether you’ve got the proportions right and the structure is airy enough to let you see down the garden.
Some conifers, such as Scots pine, Pinus sylvestris Chantry Blue, make perfect candidates for this pruning. You can apply the technique to some junipers, such as Juniperus chinensis Kaizuka. I was amused to see a nursery in London selling a meticulously pruned 3m-tall Kaizuka for the knock down price of £4,950.
When pruned to form three or four stems, rather than a single trunk, cotoneasters can look outstanding. C cornubia has a mass of red berries and green foliage that may last much of the winter in milder areas. Try pruning a young tree so it has three to four stems then raise the canopy and thin the upper branches.
Aim your loppers at some evergreen viburnums too. Have a go with any of the forms of multi-stemmed Viburnum tinus. With its dainty flowers, it is worth growing, whatever you do with it, but it’s unsurpassed by canopy raising. Viburnum davidii also responds well.
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