slideshow: beloved conifers

Conifer trees and plants are available in a range of colours, shapes and sizes. Sequoia conifers are the largest living thing on the planet. Mature trees reach for the skies but rockery or horizontalis varieties are ground hugging by comparison.

There are two common species of larch Larix kaempferi (aka leptolepis  the Japanese Larch) and European Larch Larix decidua. As the name implies the Larch looses their tufted leaves in autumn. They grow in most conditions but do not like wet or chalky soil

There are 7 or 8 different conifers in this photo from a total of 16. The whole bed is roughly rectangular 6 yards by 5 yards. It has one unusual feature in that the soil is very shallow and poor.

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The plant was first discovered near Vladivostok in the 1920s, above the treeline, where it survived the deep cold of Siberian winters, making it a Zone 3-hardy creature, supposedly.Although it is a groundcover species, don’t expect it to grow in the dark: That was the mistake made at first when Microbiota reached the American market in any numbers maybe a decade ago. Saying a plant can handle some shade is different from saying it’s a shade plant; this one wants half a day of sun or more, I think, and wholesalers who propagate a lot of it say sun to part sun on their labels. In warmer zones, protection from afternoon sun is important, and in fact Microbiota isn’t a fan of the hottest zones at all.Though Microbiota (seen above in winter color) is said to have few if any pest and disease problems, I will confess to this: I have killed a number of them, without ever

I’ve stayed put long enough to outgrow my early mishaps, and have some favorite evergreens to share including the weeping Alaska cedar, which I have always known as Chamaecyparis nootkatensis ‘Pendula’ (above, in my far borders to the west of the house). Lately it has been placed in a new genus, Xanthocyparis, but my old habits die hard. Two weeping Alaska cedars grow here now, the first a 40th birthday present from my garden mentor; the other (above) a few years younger. Each one is about 25 feet. Though they are said to reach 60 or even 90 feet in the wild (Alaska to Oregon), half that is the exp

First, the disclaimer. I know I said the plant is specifically Pinus strobus ‘Nana,’ and that’s how mine came to me, but here’s the wrinkle: ‘Nana’ is kind of a grab-bag name for many relatively compact- or mounded-growing Eastern white pines, a long-needled species native to Eastern North America, from Canada to Georgia and out to Ohio and Illinois.Today, you can shop for named varieties that are really compact, with distinctive and somewhat more predictable shapes, like‘Coney Island’ or ‘Blue Shag’ (to name two cultivars selected by the late Sydney Waxman at the University of Connecticut, who had a particular passion for this species).I could have pinched the tips of the new growth, or candles, by half each year to keep

H URRY, QUICK, RUSH: Get them before they vanish, and before the next pretty face distracts your gaze. That’s May in the garden here, a mad rush of bulbs and then ephemerals, and the first stick-around-awhile perennials, too, all happening beneath a canopy of blooming trees and shrubs. Have a quick look at some current beauties in the slideshow below, and I’ll be back to the computer to write profiles of the ones you haven’t met before.

At the time of the transplanting of the young umbrella pine, I had never seen another except in botanical-garden collections; unusual or rare was the word. Now they’re at nurseries, but usually quite small and always quite expensive, and they’re pretty easy to kill, at least at first. But what did I know when I uprooted the tree and had it put in that truck?I was just getting really serious about plants, and was a beginning garden writer, meaning I had the privilege of getting paid to visit gardens and nurseries and interview experts for stories. Those years formed my advanced education in horticulture—and also my downfall in self-control. Everybody showed me or told me about something I simply had to have. Or two or three.An umbrella pine first spoke to me in a come-hither voice at Planting Fields Arboretum in Oyster Bay, Long Island, a place I’d visited a lot as a

THEY HAVE THEIR OWN BLOG NOW, but meantime they’re still under contract here at A Way to Garden, the site that made them famous.

Click on the first thumbnail to start the slideshow, then toggle from image to image using the arrows beside each caption. Enjoy!If you like begonias, by the way, some past posts have profiled my favorites:Begonia ‘Bonfire’ Begonia ‘Bellfire’ Begonia ‘Dragon Wing Red’ Categoriesannuals & perennials slideshows

THEY ARE GARDEN STALWARTS, FEARING NOTHING–not even low single digits and multiple feet of snow. In this old-fashioned Northeastern winter of 2010-11, I’m counting my blessings, and tops on that list: the conifers who live here with me (including the weeping Alaska cedar, Chamaecyparis nootkatensis ‘Pendula,’ above).