Evergreens – friend or foe?

Help! Our gardens have descended into a wintery mess haven’t they? We can’t be the only ones wandering around dismal piles of sodden vegetation where once our summer garden was in rollicking full sail.

It’s now that evergreens can come to the rescue. Like the bowls of cheese’n onion crisps that you don’t notice till all the chilli prawn vol-au-vents have gone, they suddenly start to matter.

But in our opinion, not all evergreens are equal…

Yes let’s be a little selective. There seem to be dozens of small conifers, for instance, that just….sit there. All year. Garden gnomes, frankly, have more life about them. No, no, I like my evergreens to have a bit chutzpah, starting with:

1. Sarcococca confusa. Sweet box. Now I’ll admit that this contributes little more than a solid green backdrop to spring and summer plantings, but come late winter, it demands your attention because the scent from its wispy little white flowers will knock you sideways.  Try and plant this shrub near your front door if you can, and give your visitors a treat. Or your postman, if you are Billy-no-mates.

2. Arbutus unedo. The strawberry tree. This is a slow-growing small tree with glossy leathery leaves and a ridiculously generous list of desirable attributes – bell-shaped pink/white flowers in autumn, ripening to yellow and red small fruits through the rest of the year, red stems when young, and beautiful peeling cinnamon-coloured bark on the older branches. Very classy.

3. Pittosporum tenuifolium ‘Irene Patterson’. Here’s a pretty thing to lighten a sombre winter scene.  This is a lowish shrub with the usual small Pittosporum leaves but they open white.  Then they slowly turn dark green but remain randomly speckled with white, turning a little pink in the depths of winter. Think boring privet with a delightful dusting of snow.

4. Coronilla glauca ‘Citrina’ is one of my best ever bargain purchases.  It’s an H4 on the RHS hardiness rating which translates as tolerating temperatures of between -10 to -5C. Like me, it prefers things a little cosier than that though, and it’s super-happy near a warm south-facing wall on the south coast (sorry, sisters!).

I would love it for its dainty evergreen leaves with their bewitching bluish tinge, but often by Christmas, it will have opened its first pea-like yellow flowers too.  They’ll carry on increasing in number all through the dark days of January and February, until it’s a riot of fragrant sparkling yellow by the end of the March.  And all it asks of me is a short back-and-sides when the flowers are finally over in late May – what a plant!

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Well it all sounds very cosy in Elaine’s winter garden doesn’t it with well-behaved little evergreens with names that include words like ‘sweet’ and ‘strawberry’.

But it’s up to me to warn you about the sinister underbelly of some of our more thuggish evergreens.

5. Laurel – used ubiquitously to provide screening and noise reduction, but miss a couple of years pruning and this so-called shrub develops monster proportions, expanding exponentially to become a beast that could easily provide a carbon sink for your entire neighbourhood’s emissions. Not that I’m against the ecosystem service it provides but our native holly or yew would provide the same cover and carbon storage in a much more manageable and agreeable manner.

6. Magnolias – my next beef is about evergreen magnolias. Appreciating that you probably need to live in a stately home to have a garden big enough to accommodate a free standing Magnolia grandiflora, I thought a neatly wall-trained specimen would be the answer. Mine grows like a triffid, requiring about three days of dedicated hacking back on a platform ladder each autumn to contain it and will probably demand the services of a tree surgeon to eventually remove it. All this effort for about 3 flowers each summer.

7. Bamboo – public enemy Number 3 is bamboo. You buy them in 2-litre pots but they eventually require a mini-digger to remove them. I do actually allow one bamboo to remain. It’s Phyllostachys aurea and I submit it to a rigorous pruning session each winter which is surprisingly therapeutic and about which I have made an instructional video (link at the end)

But there are some evergreens that are naturally well-behaved ….

8. Grevillea ‘Canberra Gem’. Now I’ve got those three evergreen hooligans off my chest, let’s talk about Grevillea. A lot hardier than we’ve been led to believe this Australian evergreen is scattered with spunky little red tassly flowers from very early in the spring and sporadically throughout the rest of the year.

9. Callistemon salignus. The willow bottlebrush, also from Australia. Everything you would want from a medium sized evergreen foil to set off grasses during the winter (see our feature picture this week) but with the added bonus of subtle but striking lemon bottle brush flowers in early summer.

10. Acca sellowiana. The pineapple guava, originally from South America but grown extensively in New Zealand. Its evergreen credentials are not quite as striking as others, with tough leaves of dull metallic green but it makes up for this with flowers that are unique and intriguing, with possibly even a third attribute in hot summers of edible fragrant fruits known as feijoas.

11. Cistus creticus. Many cistus have rather dull leathery leaves so have to be tolerated rather than enjoyed out of their flowering season, but this one has softly fuzzy foliage with an endearing crinkle that makes it a warm and friendly backdrop for winter tubs.

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I’m not sure Laura’s last four choices would last a summer with me in the East Highlands, let alone a winter. So as usual it’s left to me to share the UK-wide ‘go to’ specimens for our weekly topic.

12. Box and yew – the fundamentals of winter garden structure – duh! What is prettier than a rime of frost over a neatly clipped ball…. or dinosaur (remember Laura’s topiarised stegosaurus? You must). I hear your howls of anguish over box moth, but like Gen Z’s halloumi-stuffed yams and sound baths, it’s not yet mainstream in the Highlands. And remember there is a biological spray for the blighters (box moth, not Gen Z unfortunately)

13 . Conifers – what has Elaine got against these? Very dependable wherever you live, there is a huge range of colours and sizes, plus many come with a free gift of cones. But if, like Elaine, you simply see a towering dome of gloomy pine needles blocking out your winter sunlight …..  just chop them off!

I’m no garden designer but doesn’t this actually look quite good? And it gets a big thumbs up from blue tits who find it the perfect landing pad.

10. Garrya elliptica – I’ll finish with a bit of glamour and excitement. Also known as silk tassel bush, this smasher brings a West Coast vibe from its native California. It’s hardy to H4 (possibly a bit marginal for me in the Highlands but I’m going to try) and can stand a bit of the wind.

It doesn’t grow too tall – perfect for any size of garden and just look what it does in winter! Its male catkins can get to a full 12 inches. I say!

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Here is the link to Laura’s video on pruning bamboo

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Yes it’s a mahonia but not as you’ve known it. This hybrid is one of the best: a bold, upright, evergreen shrub with showy racemes of highly scented, bright yellow flowers. Discover more about Louise’s Great Plant this Month…

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Christmas present dilemma?

If you’re looking for inspiration for Christmas presents – it’s definitely worth a browse in our shop!

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