Evergreens In The Landscape
By: S. V. Scott, Master Gardener

Evergreen trees serve us best when used as windbreaks on the north and west exposure of our homes. A windbreak will offer protection in length up to four times its height; in other words a twenty-five foot tall windbreak will shelter one hundred feet of ground from the effects of wind chill. Over time, such protection could offer considerable savings on our winters' heating bill.

Evergreens take up more space in the garden due to the 'skirt' of branches that hang to the ground, but it is important to leave this skirt if at all possible. A stiff wind can exert great leverage on the top of a tree that has been 'limbed-up', with the danger of popping the roots out of the ground.

Due to their density and potential size, evergreens can become a formidable presence in the garden. They give a landscape focus and structure, especially in winter, and lend our homes a stately dignity only the largest deciduous trees can match. If haphazardly planted, however, they can make a yard seem over-crowded, claustrophobic, and gloomy.

Use evergreen trees to screen unsightly views and muffle annoying sounds. A background of evergreens will make flowering dogwoods, redbuds, and fruit trees glow with a special intensity. A dense screen offers a sense of mystery… break through the screen with a gate or an archway to make the garden seem larger and invite the viewer to explore.

There are evergreens for every possible situation: towering white pine, short leaf pine and Colorado blue spruce for screens and windbreaks; Canadian hemlock and Hicksii yew sheared into hedges; and southern magnolias with their spectacular blooms for a focal point. For Christmas, there are American hollies, elegant and aloof; red-berried foster hollies or variegated hollies whose golden glow gives them a powerful punch.

There are round, squatty, globe arborvitaes; dainty, diminutive, dwarf Alberta spruce; and long, lean, 'Rocket' type junipers to be used like an exclamation point at the end of a sentence. They have shiny, prickly leaves, or soft, felted leaves, long, bristly needles, or needles soft as feathers with a scent, when crushed, of alpine woods. The world is rich in varieties of these easy care workhorses that can be utilized in so many different ways.

Some of the best-loved gardens in the world are built almost exclusively of evergreens. In European gardens they are massed and sheared in formal ways to give structure to the landscape throughout the year. In Japanese gardens, evergreens create a timeless air of tranquility and serene contemplation. In our hybrid American gardens we can use these special qualities to give our homes a sense of solidity and permanence that, in a restless, mobile society, they might otherwise lack.