slideshow: beloved conifers
S HOPPING FOR PLANTS, ARE WE? Make a stop in the conifer section for the most obvious of year-round-interest garden additions. I wish I’d started planting conifers earlier in my gardening career, but thankfully some of those added this last decade (like the Korean fir, above) have started to really shape up. Shall we have a look, this time in a slideshow?
You may remember some of these from A Way to Garden’s series on beloved conifers: You can find those plant profiles by going to this easily browsable page. Many links to individual plant portraits are listed below. But first, the tour (click on the first thumbnail to start the slideshow, then navigate from image to image by clicking the arrows beside the caption):
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- At their most appreciated in winter, conifers add color, structure and texture year-round. Looking down the snow-covered lawn between my far shrub borders, Abies koreana on the left and the weeping Alaska cedar on the right are sentinels in the quiet season.
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- No matter what it looked like otherwise, I’d grow the Korean fir, Abies koreana, for its astonishing purple cones alone.
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- Abies koreana is an upright, somewhat stuff pyramidal tree with soft-textured green to blue-green needed and purple cones in summer.
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- There is no blue conifer as stunning as a good specimen of Abies concolor, the concolor fir; ‘Candicans’ is a great cultivar.
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- A detail of the soft, long needles of Abies concolor, the concolor fir.
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- The golden Hinoki falsecypress, Chamaecyparis obtusa ‘Crippsii,’ is a favorite here, good in every season. I have to grow it in a protected, semi-shaded spot or winter sun and wind will brown its foliage.
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- The golden Hinoki in winter: always golden, more so in the higher-light seasons of the year.
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- The weeping Alaska Cedar cedar, Chamaecyparis nootkatensis ‘Pendula,’ among the most graceful of conifers, hardy to Zones 4-7 or 8.
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- Pendulous flattened needles positively drip from the branches of Chamaecyparis nootkatensis ‘Pendula,’ here seen frosted with snow.
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- I bought two dwarf white pines when I arrived at this place more than 20 years ago, and now they are anything but small, probably 7 feet high and 12 feet across each. A happy investment in dollars and time.
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- I grew the long-needled Pinus bungeana for its camouflage-pattern bark, but a yellow-bellied sapsucker had other plans for my poor tree.
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- The damage (the tree gradually declined).
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- It takes two years to ripen a cone of the Japanese umbrella pine, Sciatopitys verticillata, one of two plants I brought from my old garden to this one nearly 23 years ago.
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- The umbrella pine is now more than 20 feet tall, and my most treasured tree on the property.
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- The umbrella pine is an ancient thing, and like Ginkgo has been around since dinosaur times, also forming the solitary species in its genus and family, Sciadopitys verticillata.
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- The umbrella pine has long, thick dark needles unlike those of any other conifer I’ve ever seen. Visitors to the garden often come to find me to ask about the “tree over there with the plastic-looking needles,” since they’re so thick and lustrous.
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- Taxus baccata ‘Repandens Aurea’ is a spreading golden form of English yew that reaches about 12 feet wide and several feet high, and is the most brilliant gold from spring through much of the growing season (then green in winter).
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- The golden spreading yes puts on a flush of bright-colored new growth in spring. Plant portrait: https://awaytogarden.com/beloved-conifer-golden-spreading-yew
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- For basic nondescript screening, and fairly fast coverage, even in light-shade areas, I use Thuja plicata a lot, the Western redcedar. It was originally touted as deerproof in the East, but in the first season any and all I placed outside my fence were devoured. Some cultivars bronze in winter; some are more on the yellow-green side and others darker.
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- On a snowy day, an Abies concolor and some large spruces beyond hold the snow, and provide a place for overwintering birds to get out of the weather.
Favorite Coniferous Trees
(click any green type to link to the profile of that plant)
Golden hinoki cypress, Chamaecyparis obtusa ‘Crippsii’
Japanese umbrella pine, Sciadopitys verticillata
Concolor fir, Abies concolor
Weeping Alaska cedar, Chamaecyparis nootkatensis ‘Pendula’
Korean fir, Abies koreana
Lacebark pine, Pinus bungeana
Favorite Coniferous Shrubs
Russian arborvitae, Microbiota decussata
Golden spreading yew, Taxus baccata ‘Repandens Aurea’
Dwarf white pine, Pinus strobus ‘Nana’
Beautiful trees some I have coveted. Is there a favorite’s list for native to the Northeast conifers? I’m still exploring the website so I may have missed it. I’m not opposed to inviting other plants in but I start my searches with natives.
Hi, Georgia. I don’t have a native conifer list (though I am in the Northeast too). Notably I guess we have Eastern red cedar (Juniperus virginiana — there are some bluer and low-growing ones now like ‘Gray Ghost,’ not just big trees) and Eastern white pine and a few other pines, various spruces, larch (deciduous)…we used to enjoy hemlock but the insect pest called woolly adelgid has made that hard or impossible to grow. We also have Thuja occidentalis (Northern white cedar) and I suspect I am forgetting some others…oh, yes, Balsam fir (an Abies). Maybe look at the plant search database at GoBotany and click on the results and look at the maps for native range of each one as a start?
You have so many of my favorites! My parents have a few Sciadopitys verticilata which they inherited from the previous homeowners. I loved playing around them growing up (doll parasols!) and I didn’t realize how special they were until I took a class on conifers. I am working on my wish list for when we eventually take down the 3 Leylandii that our predecessors planted about 5 feet apart, plus a dying Cornus florida. We have a small lot so I have to be selective and go for dwarf or dwarf-ish cultivars. I am thinking about Abies koreana ‘Silberlocke’ (but not sure if it will hack it in zone 7), Pinus parviflora ‘Glauca nana’, and Chamaecyparis pisifera ‘Boulevard’.
Hi, Margaret. They are special trees, lucky you to have them since childhood. Thanks for saying hello.
Your conifers are gorgeous – I’d love to have the space to enjoy your weeping chamy.
Margaret, are there any dwarf spreaders that can tolerate dampness?
We had small yews in front of floor to ceiling windows that made it for several years, and are giving up one by one after heavy-snow winters causing the ground to stay too damp with a very slight roll toward them. I’d give anything not to look straight into bare twigs all winter from our breakfast table.
Hi, Sharon. “Wet feet” in winter kills many a plant. Here in the North I don’t think there’s a more deadly condition, really. I cannot think of a conifer that will handle that — though the colorful twig dogwoods and willows would. That might be a better choice!
I have this mature yew hedge, 50 year old, made up of I think 15 shrubs, 8 of which were badly mangled by a truck this winter. It lines a driveway, takes the brunt of the west winds and sun, and offers birds a place to hunker down. I now have an impending deer problem, so replacing it with yew is probably not advisable. I need something that could be kept about 6′ and take the wind. Any suggestions?
Your trees are gorgeous, but too tall for this situation.
I’m on the north shore of LI, near Stony Brook.
Your conifers are amazing; what do you feed them? And now that April is here, may I ask what organic fertilizer you are using on your beds this year, and where do you get it? A visit to Home Depot was not satisfying in that regard!
@Jayne: When I need fertilizer, I simply use the brand available at the local farm and garden supply place (after reading the label to see what’s inside). I like a fertilizer with multiple ingredients so that not all the nutrients are released at the same time (so it might have several kinds of meals, a manure, and various other items listed as what it’s “derived from”). Espoma brand is popular here and widely available in my region in the large bags I need, for example, in different formulas (like for bulbs, vegetables…). As for the conifers, I don’t really feed them regularly at all, but the times I have fed one or another, I have chosen a formula geared to their needs.
You are growing some of my favorites. Try some of the Picea orientalis. A golden one is Skylands. Wonderful. One of the best dwarf conifer nurserymen is in your area — Dennis Dodge of Bethlehem Nursery in Bethlehem, Conn., just south of White Flower Farm. Among others Dennis collects various forms of the umbrella pine. Different variegations, miniatures. They take your breath away and can turn the most avid disliker of conifers into an obsessed collector.
Welcome, Abby Jane. Love ‘Skylands,’ an amazing golden conifer. I have two young trees, not really showy enough to document yet but coming along. Thank you for the reminder…maybe one is ready for its closeup after all. :)
That was a wonderful winter walk in your end of the woods.
Its so nice to see them grown up. The dwarf pine is much more appealing as an adult than a toddler.
Oh, Margaret: such a lovely assortment and all seem placed to perfection. I admit to having a few beauties myself, but they live much closer to their neighbors on my urban half-acre.
Hmmmm, that’s an interesting post. I always thought they needed quite a big garden. Conifers are not something I would naturally gravitate towards but will now check some out at the garden centre…..
Welcome, Deb. Don’t wait like I did (for more than 10 years to plant most of them). Choose ones that suit your property scale-wise, of course. I look forward to hearing what you choose. See you soon again.
Today is a day I read most things with a wary eye lest I be hoodwinked. I hope this isn’t an April fool scam and it turns out your garden doesn’t even exist. That would be cruel, very cruel;)