Product Description

A comprehensive colour guide to the full range of evergreens. The book covers bulbs, grasses, ferns, conifers and shrubs for all year round interest in the garden.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #65628 in Books
• Published on: 1998-04-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 128 pages

From the Back Cover
How to transform your garden with the use of evergreens.

* A-Z listing of evergreens * Separating evergreens into types * How, and when, to plant evergreens

About the Author
Dr. D.G. Hessayon
Dr D.G. Hessayon's Expert books have made him the world's best-selling author on gardening. Born in Manchester, he was variously a horticulturist research scientist, university lecturer, artist and newspaper editor before launching the Expert series in 1959. In 1999 Dr Hessayon was awarded a Guinness World Record Certificate for being Britain's best-selling living author of the 1990s. He lives in Essex, and has two daughters and four grandchildren.

Excerpted from The Evergreen Expert by D.G. Hessayon. Copyright © 1998. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
It would seem to be quite a simple matter to separate plants into evergreens (types which keep their leaves in winter) and deciduous plants 9types which drop their leaves in autumn or winter). A trip down the garden path in January should reveal all – the conifers are evergreens whereas the leafless oaks are obviously deciduous.

This simple example illustrates the first difficulty. There are deciduous conifers such as Larix, Ginkgo and Taxodium, and there are evergreen oaks such as the Holm Oak. So-called evergreen groups or genera often have a deciduous species or two and some basically deciduous genera have evergreen species

Difficulty number two. Just because a plant is listed as an evergreen does not mean that you can be sure of a leafy display all winter long. Some evergreens are not fully hardy and this means that the plant as well as the leaves may be killed if the site is too cold or too exposed for the plant in question.

A third point to remember is that the overwintering foliage may not be particularly decorative. Of course the popular evergreen trees and shrubs bring a welcome touch of life and colour to the winter garden but there are numerous evergreen perennials, rock garden plants and bulbs which do little to liven the scene during the off-season.

The three points discussed above mean that you should choose carefully when looking for an evergreen for your garden. Firstly, check that the species or variety really is an evergreen – the label or catalogue should tell you. This step is especially necessary when the genus is a large and complex one – with plants such like Lonicera, Berberis, Viburnum and Rhododendron there are lots of deciduous as well as evergreen species and varieties. Secondly, make sure the plant is suitable for the site where it will have to grow – do not confuse the word evergreen with winter hardy as a plant can be one without the other.

It may seem strange that this introduction should begin with words of caution rather than paragraphs of praise for this invaluable group of plants. The reason is simple – it is only by choosing wisely and avoiding pitfalls that you can set about transforming your garden with evergreens. And you can transform your garden – not in late spring and summer, perhaps, when your beds and borders are full of leaf and flower, but without the proper use of evergreens a garden can be a sorry sight between November and March.

The use of evergreens in the average garden is often restricted to hedges of privet, yew or box and a number of trees and shrubs such as azaleas, heathers, laurels and conifers. These are the most popular ones, but you will find many others in mixed borders down any suburban street. Touches of winter colour, then, but with careful choosing and siting evergreens are capable of providing so much more. Bare patches of ground can be brought to life by using evergreen ground covers, bare rose beds can be brightened by planting some semi-evergreen varieties and the herbaceous border can be improved for winter by introducing some evergreen perennials.

Despite the name there are many colours other than green among the evergreens, and these varieties can be used to provide bright splashes when flowers are short or totally missing from the garden. Use Choisya ternata ‘Sundance’ or Cupressus macrocarpa ‘Goldcrest’ to provide a yellow highlight or plant Photinia fraseri ‘Red Robin’ for fiery young foliage in spring. The many variegated-leaved evergreens have foliage which is edged or spotted with white, cream or gold – Euonymus fortunei ‘Emerald ‘n’ Gold’ can be as eye-catching as many flowering shrubs in full bloom.

With the clear advantage of providing year-round winter colour it might seem that evergreens ought to be the dominant type in the garden, but that is not so. Too many evergreens can give a static feel – with deciduous plants there is the fascination of bare branches bursting into leaf in the spring and the frequent bonus of rich hues in autumn. The usual but by no means rigid advice is to aim to have approximately the same number of evergreen and deciduous shrubs and trees.