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Evergreen shrubs

Winter skeleton that supports a garden

Every garden needs evergreen shrubs – think of them as the bones that hold it together and become its winter stars. Evergreens can look downright dull in summer, or at least that’s what I used to think, comparing them to showy annuals or herbaceous perennials.

Plain dark foliage plays its part in offsetting more colourful things. When autumn strikes and everything dies down, then it’s their time to shine. Here are the plants that create, or did create, the winter structure in my garden. Things have changed over the years!

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  • Evergreen shrubs

Evergreen shrubs – Berberis darwinii and B. atropurpurea

This venerable, 12ft giant finally bit the dust in the winter of 2021/22. Apparently, old specimens can split right down the trunk, which it did, weakening the shrub. Bits of it were dead way before we had to cut it down, as can be seen by the weird jelly ears fungus.

Its tiny, dark green holly-like leaves are secondary to the gnarled stems. There are orange flowers in spring and purple/black berries. Seeds itself around a bit, too. Still standing in the front garden is B. atropurpurea, with vivid purple leaves but it falls victim to powdery mildew every year.

Coprosma Pacific Sunset

Looks like a small holly on acid, with purple and red shiny leaves. It’s not that hardy and only survived two winters. A shame, because the leaves really are something.

Evergreen shrubs – Euphorbia

E. martinii Ascot Rainbow and E. characias subsp. wulfenii provide great structure, despite only being hardy down to -5C. I’ve never had a problem with the latter even at lower temperatures, although the Beast from the East saw an end to Ascot Rainbow. Read more about euphorbia here.

Evergreen shrubs
Windmill Palm, Fatsia japonica Spider’s Web and Cephalotaxus harringtonia Korean Gold

Fatsia japonica

A mainstay of any tropical garden, with glossy, palmate leaves and very hardy. The two green-leaved Fatsias, although the same variety, have different growth habits. The oldest is a towering 10-footer, popular as a nesting spot for birds. There’s a slightly younger one in the front garden, only 6ft tall, but much bushier and free flowering. The white globule-like flowers appear in November, followed by small black fruits.

F. japonica variegata was planted in 2013. It’s slower growing than the other two, with leaves edged and blotched in cream. Less hardy than the plain form. Newer still is Spider’s Web, with cream variegation just like its name suggests. It lives in a blue-glazed ceramic pot.

Evergreen shrubs – Lavender

Contrasting lilac and pink forms are trimmed like rosemary and planted with plenty of gravel, which probably helps them to survive. I’ve had many over the years, with Hidcote probably my favourite over Munstead (I prefer the darker flowers). For a vast selection of varieties, try www.lavenderworld.co.uk.

Phormium (New Zealand flax)

A double-edged sword, a bit like its leaves. What was a striking architectural plant has taken over a corner of the front garden, swamping the weeping cherry. Read more about Phormiums here and suitable varieties for small gardens here.

Evergreen shrubs – Pyracantha

I have two plants, one red, and one orange, both trained into the hedge. The birds very swiftly strip the orange variety of its berries virtually overnight.

Rosemary

This 4ft high bush was trimmed into a roughly rounded shape and survived the freezing winter of 2011/12, with just a touch of frost damage. However, it was split in one of our storms (stems can be quite brittle) and never recovered.

Evergreen shrubs
Abies koreana (Korean fir) with cones

Evergreen shrubs – The only way is up for conifers

The much-maligned conifer has for years been seen as an easy solution to an older person’s front garden, or the Leylandii hedge. We need to look at them in a new light. They have architectural shapes; all-year-round colour; a great smell and are easy to grow.

Try to work them into planting schemes alongside herbaceous perennials, deciduous shrubs, bulbs, annuals, etc. Here are my favourites (all slow growing):

Abies koreana (Korean fir)

Although this is a tree, I’ve included it here because it is slow growing and will stay manageable for some years. Its selling point is the violet-blue cones, borne at a young age. My 1.5m plant has been covered with cones this year. It does concern me that it can get to 10m with a spread of 6m but not for decades! It’s in a raised bed so can be moved into a large pot to curb its growth.

Evergreen shrubs
Cephalotaxus harringtonia Korean Gold

Cephalotaxus harringtonia Korean Gold (gold-needled plum or Korean yew)

New growth is yellow/gold. It grows to 120cm in 10 years; double that in 20. Young columnar growth matures into an inverted pyramid and will take some shade. I’m growing it in a large pot and it’s doing very well.

Evergreen shrubs – Picea glauca Sander’s Blue

Very slow-growing, conical tree, but not a dwarf. It will grow to 120cm in 10 years but eventually, matures to 6m. However, I’ll be dead then. Its soft blue-green aromatic needles become greener with age. Sander’s Blue is a sport of Picea glauca, the white spruce, an extremely hardy conifer native to upland areas and lake/stream margins stretching from Alaska across the boreal forest of Canada to Newfoundland.

Evergreen shrubs
Wasp on flowering ivy in October

Ivy – vital for pollinators

Most people, if told to choose one climber, would ignore the common green ivy. It’s easy to be seduced by flowers and variegated foliage – Goldheart, Paddy’s Pride and Glacier are certainly prettier.

My garden came with its own supply – growing out of a crack between the outer staircase and the garage wall. It covered the whole wall and looks very handsome. Its yellowish-green flowers are borne in small clusters and have a honey scent.

This is where a ‘slight’ difference of opinion occurs between the family and me. It attracts lots of insects – bees, wasps, hoverflies, flies, butterflies – you name it. As it covers the wall leading to our back door, people don’t appreciate the benefit to wildlife. They see the wasps and think they’ll get stung. Ivy’s late flowering season makes it a valuable source of nectar prior to hibernation.

The black berries, ripe from November to January, provide many birds, particularly wood pigeon, thrushes, and blackbirds, with abundant food supplies. All parts of the ivy are toxic to humans, but not other animals. Wearing a wreath of ivy leaves around the brow is supposed to prevent you from getting drunk, as it was dedicated to Bacchus, the Roman God of Intoxication!

  • Evergreen shrubs
  • Evergreen shrubs
  • Evergreen shrubs
  • Evergreen shrubs

Sexually confused hollies

Hollies, like people, are mostly male or female. If your plant doesn’t have berries, it’s either a male (which doesn’t get any) or a female whose flowers haven’t been pollinated. You need to plant one of each sex, which is more confusing than it seems since many are named as the wrong gender.

There is a fairly common variety of English holly, Ilex aquifolium JC van Tol, that is female but self-fertile. Its glossy, dark green leaves are almost spineless and the bright red berries appear on dark purple stems in autumn and persist through the winter. There are others – check specialist suppliers.

My first holly was Golden King (obviously female). It has golden-edged, almost spine-free leaves and red berries. Next came Ilex aquifolium Silver Queen (male), with dark green spiny leaves, purple stems and branches and new growth tinged with pink. It’s a lovely foliage plant, so don’t think you’re missing out by not having berries.

The other is Ilex x altaclerensis Lawsoniana (female), with broad, spineless leaves, marked with yellow and yellow/green, and red berries.

Evergreen shrubs updated August 2022