Evergreens a Must for Good Design!

    

For all of us that live in a four season climate...evergreen plants are a must for good Landscape Design!  In Utah, where my family lives, we have a good 5 months where deciduous plants are leafless.  For me as an landscape lover it is hard to drive through neighborhoods and see residential landscapes that had such beauty, only to disappear for half of the year.  I am guilty of not having enough evergreen plants in my landscape, so come fall - your beautiful landscape is gone! 
     Back in the day...the 70's and 80's people planted a lot of different types of evergreens - Yews, Junipers, Tams, and huge pine trees. This has since gone out of style, mainly because they require extensive trimming and hedging.  Another reason is because these plants are extremely vigorous.  You plant a small Juniper for example, and 10 years later you have a monster bush overtaking your landscape.  People just don't have the time it takes to prune and hedge consistently to keep these plants under control.  Fortunately, there are a lot of evergreen plants out there that are a lot easier to control and have nice natural form (less hedging).  As far as pine trees, there are a lot of dwarf varieties now available.  So instead of planting a Blue Spruce, which grows to over 80 feet tall - you can now plant a dwarf variety that only grows to 15 feet tall!
       In my next post I will go over my list of favorite evergreens, and why.  Do you have any favorite evergreen plants?  Follow me and I will help you find some!