Your Complete Guide to Growing and Caring for Conifers

Garden conifers offer a varied palette of colors, textures, and forms. They will be outstanding additions for decades. With careful consideration of their mature height and spread when placed in your garden. Make your plant selection based on the following factors:

• Function: the reason for choosing the plant, such as blocking an unwanted view or creating a windbreak.
• Form: the shape of the conifer will have an impact on the overall aesthetic.
• The right plant, right place: this principle encourages selecting a conifer that works with the natural ecosystem. In short, the plant must thrive in the USDA growing zone and the existing soil and light conditions. Other factors such as available moisture, pH, prevailing winds, and mature size should all be considered.

As a garden designer, I first choose the form that performs its function as beautifully as possible. Most of our gardens are not blank canvases but have existing features and conditions that we must integrate. Conifers have very strong forms that add interest, especially in winter. They can unify the garden design or create a backdrop for perennials and deciduous plants.

• A columnar form that is tall and narrow works well. Use as a hedging plant, visual screen, or planted singularly as a vertical accent (focal point) in the garden. Gray Gleam Juniper, Sky Rocket Juniper, and Yellow Ribbon Arborvitae are superb choices for this use in the garden.
• The pyramidal shape is wider at the bottom with a central trunk and often has horizontal branching. Pyramidal-shaped trees are generally more wind-resistant, like the striking Icee Blue® Yellow-Wood. The colorful and stunning Hoop’s Blue Spruce is a good choice for larger properties. The strong-rooted and virtually disease-free Green Giant Western Arborvitae thrives in warmer climates.
• Rounded forms can soften the sharp angles of a home’s architecture and outdoor structures and lend an air of formality. Dwarf Norway Spruce, with its spreading-rounded habit, can be a good cover-up for unsightly mechanical equipment. To obscure any undesirable features of your home’s foundation, plant Dwarf Scotch Pine or Danica Arborvitae. The rugged and adaptable Hetz Mini Arborvitae can be used in formal and modern-style gardens. It grows well in dry climates.
• Use spreading and mounding planted en masse, especially on slopes. Blue Pacific Shore Juniper is a very heat-tolerant plant that is a good choice for erosion control. Youngstown Andorra Juniper is a versatile ground cover that looks graceful, cascading over boulders or walls. Buffalo Juniper has excellent deer resistance and is easy to grow even in coastal conditions.
• Instead of growing straight up, the branches of weeping forms cascade beautifully to the ground. The weeping form is best used as a focal point. It can also be dramatic on a hillside combined with other shrubs. Tolleson’s Blue Weeping Juniper is tolerant of dry environments and makes a graceful background specimen or privacy screen. The unique, pendulous habit of Weeping Threadleaf Arborvitae can provide texture in a border planting. Sargent’s Weeping Hemlock shrub has finely textured foliage that thrives in both sun and shade.