No one is listening, so tell me, hand on heart, do you grow small conifers? You are supposed to be growing dazzling dahlias these days, or waving grasses-and-perennials. But do you now, or have you ever, planted small conifers?
Somebody must plant them, because you only have to go into a garden centre and there they are by the dozen. Granted, they can look brash herded together in one sales display, but practical gardeners, especially in the North, find them incredibly useful. So why be ashamed of them?
Thousands of improved varieties have been named in the past ten years, in all shapes, sizes and colours. None is more striking than the varieties of Podocarpus, a bushy, needle-leaved conifer from New Zealand that bears a berry, not a cone. Its attraction lies in the colour of its new foliage and in its mature foliage in winter. It can be clipped too; imagine a not-too-formal 3ft box hedge with bronze or coppery leaves. Especially good in winter are ‘Chocolate Box’, ‘Young Rusty’ and ‘Kilworth Cream’. ‘County Park Fire’ turns from cream, through salmon, to bronze-red. They will stand very moist soil but don’t mind drying out; what more could you ask?
Some old “dwarf” conifer varieties such as Picea ‘Clanbrassiliana’ (1790), planted 100 years ago, have great domes 15ft across. But gardeners are starting to learn that you can espalier weeping blue cedars, or cloud prune established cypresses, particularly statuesque varieties such as good old Chamaecyparis obtusa ‘Nana Gracilis’. You can even bonsai them.
New variegations are available. The 3ft4ft ‘Guardsman’s helmet’ cones of Picea albertiana ‘Conica’ have always been popular for their fresh, pale-green fuzz in spring; but now there’s ‘Daisy’s White’ to add a little sparkle. Upright yews have long been used as formal accents; now there are varieties whose foliage is creamy in winter – ‘Icicle’ and ‘Ivory Tower’. The colder it gets, the brighter the white.
Advertisement
There are new tall conifers too. The incense cedar Calocedrus decurrens ‘Berrima Gold’ is yellow in summer, turning an intense orange at the tips in winter. The dawn redwood has a new cultivar, ‘Gold Rush’, that is as strikingly yellow as Robinia ‘Frisia’. Conversely, there’s a variety of the mighty swamp cypress Taxodium distichum (such lovely autumn colour) called ‘Peve Minaret’, which makes only 2in-3in a year and can be grown in a tub of water. Juniperus ‘Pfitzeriana Aurea’ always spreads far beyond expectations in old age, but now there’s the similar J. horizontalis ‘Lime Glow’, which is bright yellow in summer and infinitely more manageable.
You’d be mad to use yellow conifers too generously; they are accent plants, for highlights only. But there is still so much that can be done with conifers. Imagine making a pleached hedge of ginkgo instead of lime, or using domes of Thuja ‘Amber Glow’ instead of golden box to brighten a knot-garden. Still haunted by that 1970s image of heather and dwarf conifer gardens? Get over it. It’s time we said: they’re just plants, let’s use them. And this is the time to plant.
The following nurseries have good collections of conifers:
limecross.co.uk; holdencloughnursery.com; www.bluebellnursery.com; hardybamboo.com; www.burncoose.co.uk; coniferinfo.co.uk