The Value of
Evergreens Twitter @GeoffCarr2
Give evergreen plants amoment’sconsideration. On reflection, whatimagecomes to your mind’seye when youthinkabout evergreen plants? One imagemight be hedges? Do Christmas trees come to mind?Bushy shrubs? Youmight think about holly trees? Even ivy or grass?
Perhapsyou don’thaveaclearly defined imageof whatanevergreen is –do not confuse the word ‘ev- ergreen’ with meaning frostorwinter proof, aplant canbe evergreen without being
hardy.The Royal Horticultural Society Encyclopaedia of Gardening de- scribes evergreens thus: -‘Of plants that retain their foliagefor morethan one growing season’.The word ‘foliage’ is importanttoremember when you are considering buying an evergreen, for instance, some varieties of Kniphofia(red-hot-poker) aredescribed as an evergreen and yet, surely,it’sonly ever consid- ered forits showy August flowers? Unless used with a real design flair its long and lank, sometimes scruffy, grass-like evergreen leavesadd little to the garden for the remainingmonths of the year. Something else to consider when talking about evergreen plants is that
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manyofthem arenot green at all. Good examples of evergreen plants that are other coloursthan green are: Heuchera, Artemisia, Choisya ternata ‘Sundance’, Euphorbia amygdaloides ‘Purpurea’.
The mostcommon use of aproperly chosen evergreen is probably for bringing garden interest between No- vember and March and, surely, therecannotbe agar- den anywhere, of anysize, thatwon’tbenefit fromthe presence of at leastone plantthatkeepsitfoliage for all 12 months of the year? However, to utilise ever- greens simply as winterinterest can mean missing the point ofsome evergreen plants. For example, Azaleas, Hypericum, Viburnum, Bergenia, Rhododendron and Camellia all have fabulous displays of seasonal flower colour.
Toomanyevergreens canmake aspace feel leaden, staticand wanting although there are some exciting examples of beautifullydesigned evergreen gardens. The generally accepteddesign rule of thumb is to have roughly the same volume of evergreen and deciduous shrubsand trees.
In my opinion the mostimportantquality of an ever- green is not howitlooks but whatitsymbolises. They serve to remind us of the continuousand uplifting characteristics of the natural world, characteristics that I believe are what makes gardening and gardens so importantto somanyindividuals. Geoff Carr
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