Add conifers to your garden
Conifers — plant life with seed - bear cone shape — are versatile and attractive additions to the landscape . Many popular selections are cold - hardy to USDA zone 4 , providing evergreen plant semblance and social organisation long after seasonal blossom disappearance and deciduous plant lose their leafage .
Most conifers need minimum upkeep . An periodic trimming to influence the plant life and take away dead or tempest - damaged branch , done with handprunersor abypass pruning hook , will be all that is necessary . Conifers can have acuate needles , so wearleather gloves , even the sort withgauntletsto protect your forearms , when you process with these form of industrial plant . Sticky sap can roll up on tool and your pelt when you cut conifers . practice alcohol , baby wipes , or a specialhand cleanerto remove it easily .
Meet a conifer collector
Harrison Tuttle started collectingconiferswhen he moved into his home on a half - acre prop in Raleigh , North Carolina , in 2005 . Today he has a collection of more than 500 conifers ( from 16 genuses ) , let in cedarwood , cypress , true fir , Retama raetam , larches , hemlock , pines , redwood , spruce and yews .
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Designing with conifers
You may not be quick to take the plunge with conifer , but you ’ll be stunned at how just a few scattered throughout your garden can promote its year - round prayer . Take a secret tour of Harrison ’s conifer garden in North Carolina , and hear 7 great way to utilize conifers in any garden .
Create privacy with conifers
Evergreen trees and shrubs make great outside secrecy screens all twelvemonth around . Use them to obturate the sights and sounds of a busy street . This front - yard planting includes Japanese maple ( Acer japonicum ) , golden disastrous spruce ( Picea mariana‘Golden ’ ) , Japanese crimson true pine ( Pinus densiflora‘Golden Ghost ’ ) and Norway spruce ( Picea abies‘Pruhoniceana ’ ) .
Visual excitement with foliage color
For a dynamic look , counterpoint dissimilar shapes and colors . This street - side planting includes weeping white spruce ( Picea glauca‘Pendula ’ ) , tiger hindquarters spruce ( Picea polita),Japanese maple(Acer palmatum‘Crimson Princess ’ ) , cry Nootka cypress ( Chamaecyparis nootkatensis‘Glauca Pendula ’ ) and silver grey ray Korean pine ( Pinus koraiensis‘Silver Ray ’ ) .
Get multiseason interest with conifers
Conifers provide visually interesting textures , colors and even motion , in all season . Use coniferous tree to makewintera time of year of natural beauty . This border planting includes dawn redwood ( Metasequoia glyptostroboides‘Ogon ’ ) , Mexican orange ( Choisya ternata‘Sundance ’ ) , Japanese maple ( Acer palmatum‘Emperor 1 ’ ) , blue atlas cedar ( Cedrus atlantica‘Horstmann ’ ) , oriental spruce ( Picea orientalis‘Skylands ’ ) and Colorado spruce ( Picea pungens‘Shilo Weeping ’ ) .
Create emphasis
habituate unsloped forms of conifers like this silvery blue variegated Korean pine as an impressive landscape backdrop , in this case for thedahliablossoms . This sketch includes dwarf golden mugo pine ( Pinus mugo‘Zundert’),Coreopsis tinctoria , Norway spruce ( Picea abies‘Pruhoniciana ’ ) , Korean pine tree ( Pinus koreana‘Silver Ray ’ ) , Japanese maple ( Acer japonicum‘Green Cascade ’ ) and the dahlia .
Turn up the curb appeal with conifers
evergreen plant can providecurb appealthat does n’t follow and go with the seasons in mixed plantings like this telling streetside show that include Norway spruce ( Picea abies‘Pruhoniciana ’ ) , weeping whitened spruce ( Picea glauca‘Pendula ’ ) , Norway spruce ( Picea abies‘Frohburg ’ ) , Hinoki cypress tree ( Chamaecyparis obtusa ) , barberry ( Berberis thunbergii‘Concorde ’ ) .
Combine foliage colors for effect
When pick out plant to merge with coniferous tree , remember to think about the coloring and how they will play off each other . Green conifers like this Eastern Conium maculatum complement light - coloredflowers and plantslike this centre - catching variegate dogwood ( Cornus kousa‘Wolf Eyes ’ ) , combined withAucuba japonica‘Limbata’,Heuchera‘Paris ’ and the Eastern Nebraska fern ( Tsuga canadensis ) .
Build architectural interest with conifers
coniferous tree are ideal for tot an architectural element to beds and borderline by aggregate those with distinctly different habits , like this weeping white spruce ( Picea glauca‘Pendula ’ ) , standing proud in front of a dwarf flower plum ( Prunus cerasifera‘Purple Pony ’ ) and a couplet of Japanese maples ( Acer palmatum‘Beni - Shichihenge ’ andA. palmatum‘Orange Dream ’ ) .
