Most landscapes have either too much evergreen foliage (i.e. Blue Colorado Spruce taking up the whole front yard) or too little (perennial gardens). So what's a gardener to do? How about instead of adding big spruce and pine trees that get too big, we add more evergreen shrubs to the landscape. In a previous post, I answered a reader’s question about selecting an evergreen shrub to put as a foundation plant. In that post, I mentioned one of my favorite easy care plants. The birds nest spruce … [Read more...]
Three top native evergreen trees for four season gardens
A while ago, I did a post on 3 of my favorite evergreen shrubs. Now I would like to discuss three of my top native evergreen trees for four season landscapes. By native, I mean native to the U.S. … [Read more...]
Adding winter interest to your landscape
When designing a landscape for four season interest in the Midwestern United States, you must make planning for the winter season a priority. This is a lesson I have learned the hard way. When I first started landscaping my own yard over a decade ago, I realized you needed evergreens to provide interest in all seasons. I just did not realize how many evergreens you needed. So I got a few dwarf conifers like bird’s nest spruce and a Bosnian pine (Pinus heldreichii). I then went on and … [Read more...]
What is the best evergreen shrub for your foundation?
BEST EVERGREEN SHRUB? I was recently asked the following question by a visitor to the garden: “What would be the best evergreen shrub for under my kitchen window in full sun? I don’t want an arborvitae that turns brown in the winter or an Alberta spruce. I want something that stays green.” … [Read more...]