Wilmington News Journal Article
Evergreens: Backbone of the Garden
by Rick J. Lewandowski
With winter upon us, I’m reminded that this is the perfect time to evaluate the aesthetic appeal of the garden. Do you have spots in the garden that feel empty or lifeless during the winter? Are there areas of your property or off-site views that would be great to hide? Or, would you just like to look out the window in the dead of winter and enjoy the beauty of evergreen foliage against the backdrop of a snowy garden?
Well, if you are feeling that the garden could use a little shot in the arm, there are several native evergreen plants that can provide just what’s needed to enhance your garden’s character. You could fall back on the big three–white pine, hemlock, and arborvitae–but, they often outgrow and overwhelm smaller gardens. Besides, there are a lot of other choices. Read on further to explore a sampling of excellent native evergreens that can add beauty and versatility to your gardening experience.
Among my favorite evergreen trees native to the eastern U.S. is American holly (Ilex opaca). Though slow growing–only a foot per year–American holly has a formal pyramidal shape, reaching 40 feet tall or more in the garden. It is a very good screening plant for the back of the property and a wonderful backdrop to other garden companions. American holly performs well in sun or shade as long as the soils are well-drained and slightly acidic. While it can get large over many years, American holly is quite amenable to pruning to keep it under control. There are few evergreens more beautiful than American holly in winter with its bright red berries set against dark green foliage, especially when allowed to branch to the ground. Some notable cultivars worth considering include ‘Jersey Princess’ (lustrous dark foliage and good red fruit),
‘Old Heavy Berry’ (reliable masses of red fruit annually), ‘Canary’ (bright yellow fruit),‘Maryland Dwarf’ (3' tall, broad-spreading shrub), and ‘Satyr Hill’ (large red fruit).
For smaller landscapes, inkberry (Ilex glabra) is a highly adaptable native shrub found in Delaware, New Jersey and much of the east coast. With delightfully small leaves and a refined rounded habit, this shrub rarely grows more than 6 feet tall. What makes inkberry even more useful is its ability to tolerate both wet and dry soils conditions as well as full sun to shade. Inkberry can serve as screen, a problem-solver in poorly drained garden conditions, or as a background shrub. What more can you ask from a garden plant? To insure the best quality plant, you should use one of the gardenworthy cultivars of inkberry such as ‘Densa’ (dense form and dark foliage-5'), ‘Shamrock’ (more compact with loose habit-4'), ‘Compacta’ (large dense form-7') or Nordic™ (compact and low growing-3').
Close-up of inkberry.
Inkberry in the garden.
Another attractive evergreen shrub with an upright arching to graceful cascading habit is drooping leucothoe (Leucothoe fontanesiana). It is a delightful multi-stemmed shrub with an attractive branching character that can enliven virtually any winter garden. Drooping leucothoe is quite effective as a foundation shrub or companion in the mixed shrub and perennial border, particularly when soils are well-drained and acidic. Drooping leucothoe is well behaved, typically reaching only 3-4 feet tall. In winter, its leaves can develop a rich burgundy color. While drooping leucothoe is found naturally from Virginia and the Carolinas southward, it is a solid garden companion in our region. Cultivars you might consider for your own garden include ‘Nana’ (dwarf form-2'), ‘Scarletta’ (deep red new growth becoming green), ‘Greensprite’ (a Mt. Cuba Center introduction with wavy and glossy leaf margins), and ‘Silver Run’ (variegated leaves).
Close-up of drooping leucothoe.
Drooping leucothoe in the garden.
Greensprite drooping leucothoe.
Not all native evergreens are trees or shrubs, though. One fine example, Christmas fern (Polystichum acrostichoides) is an excellent plant with wintergreen character for the shade beneath trees and shrubs or as a large scale shade loving groundcover. Reaching only 1-2 feet tall, it happily grows in some of the most difficult dry and shady conditions that the garden can muster as long as the soils are slightly acidic. Christmas fern is also the garden gem that keeps on giving; it can be divided everything two or three years to spread into other parts of your garden. Christmas fern can be found naturally in forests throughout virtually the entire eastern U.S.
Christmas fern.
These evergreens are just a small sampling of the garden companions you can consider in order to add winter appeal to your garden. So, make a cup of tea, go back to the window, and dream of how you are going to add those evergreens to enhance your winter garden’s character. Happy holidays!
Cut Greens--An Added Bonus during the Holiday Season
With the holiday season upon us, a wide range of the native evergreens from your garden, as well as those mentioned in this article, can be used to create holiday arrangements, adding value to their garden use. Mt. Cuba Center’s Formal Gardens horticulturist and talented arrangement designer, Donna Wiley, notes that using a variety of native evergreens from your garden makes holiday decorations more interesting and very personal. “Besides,” she notes, “What’s more fun than creating beauty from elements in your own backyard?”
Donna recommends the following evergreens for use and suggests that they be used in water or stuck in wet florist foam for extended value including American holly (Ilex opaca), bayberry (Morella cerifera), Christmas fern (Polystichum acrostichoides), drooping leucothoe (Leucothoe fontanesiana), Eastern red cedar (Juniperus virginiana), Florida anise (Illicium floridanum), inkberry (Ilex glabra), rosebay rhododendron (Rhododendron maximum), Southern magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora), and white pine (Pinus strobus). Donna warns that only a few of these evergreens should be used in dry arrangements including white pine, Eastern red cedar, and American holly.
Regardless of your skill level, though, experiment and find out what works best for you. Enjoy!