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Nestling Conifers for Variety and Winter Protection

  • September 16, 2016
  • Posted by: admin
  • Category: Plant News
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By Ronald J. Elardo, Ph.D., Editor
CONIFER Quarterly

Nestling conifers provide a palette of textures, colors, and sizes to create rich layers of interest in the garden. This approach often termed plant – stuffing also offers protection for tender conifers, which may be marginal in some plant Zones.

Conifers are one of the most versatile plants for landscape designers because they bring year-round interest to a landscape that would otherwise seem lifeless during winter. In spring, their flowers can appear in dark purple, raspberry red, pink, yellow, white and red. New needle growth often brings additional delight as some varieties have lemon-yellow or red, turning to green upon maturation.

• Conifers can be planted during the spring, summer, and fall.

• New plantings must be watered every three days unless 1” of rain falls/week, right up to ground-freeze.

• When watering, unless you have an irrigation system, hold the hose above the rootball area and count to FIFTY.

• Conifers grow in all USDA Zones.

• Consult the guide book Landscaping with Conifers and Ginkgo for the Southeast.

• Protect more delicate or borderline-zonal conifers against winter desiccation by wrapping them or shielding them with burlap.

• Nestling multiple conifers in one area provides winter protection.

• Conifers range from miniature to large according to the American Conifer Society’s sizing standards.

• Conifers can be pendulous, mounding, bush-like, columnar, triangular, spindly, spreading, deciduous and ever-colored.

• For reference visit The American Conifer Society  website.

In the end, one you may contract  “Addicted Conifer Society” disease (ACS), in which you develop an insatiable desire to collect more and more varieties.   You might show up before dawn when the first spring shipments arrive at your local nursery.   You’ll attend local, regional and national meetings of the American Conifer Society, where live and silent auctions provide dwarf,  rare and miniature varieties.  Before long you’ll  graft  trees, trade with new found friends and your landscape will become a collection of rare and unusual conifer types.

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