Evergreen bones for every season. Conifers hold their needles and their shape when the rest of the garden has gone bare, giving structure, shelter, and deep green (or blue, or gold) through the darkest months of the year.
Juniperus virginiana, the eastern red cedar, is a tough, aromatic native conifer of eastern North America, found from Canada to the Gulf and famous for fragrant, moth-repelling wood and a pioneering habit on poor, dry, and abandoned ground. 'Lawrenceville' is a narrow, upright selection, a slender column of dense, dark evergreen foliage with short branches held close to the trunk, ideal where vertical form is wanted in a small footprint.
Hardiness
Zones 3–9
Light
Full Sun
Height
15–25 ft.
Spread
4–8 ft.
Bloom
Blue
Plant type
Conifer
Traditional use
respiratory support, topical applications, general wellness
A refined and rarely encountered evergreen conifer from the mountains of southeastern China and Taiwan, Keteleeria davidiana is a tree of quiet distinction. Introduced to Western gardens in the nineteenth century, the species has stayed largely within botanical gardens and specialist collections, seldom offered in the nursery trade and still little known outside conifer circles. The genus name honors J. B. Keteleer, a French nurseryman of the era, while the epithet davidiana remembers Armand David, the missionary-naturalist who botanized widely in China.
There is something almost meditative about Nageia nagi. Named from the Japanese word nagi, meaning both calm and to mow down one's troubles, this ancient conifer carries a quiet gravitas few trees can match. At the Nyakuoji Shrine in Kyoto a sacred nagi tree has stood for centuries, believed to cut through hardship and leave peace in its wake, and sprigs of nagi have long passed between lovers as a token of steadfast devotion, the leaves too tough and resilient to tear easily, a metaphor that has endured for a thousand years.
Pinus patula is the weeping pine, and few conifers wear their needles so gracefully. Long, slender, and soft, the bright grass-green needles hang straight down from the branches in feathery curtains, so that the whole tree seems to pour toward the ground, especially in a light breeze. Fast-growing and open-crowned, this is a Mexican pine grown above all for that pendent, shimmering foliage.
The Himalayan white pine is one of the most graceful of the large conifers, a broad, elegant tree hung with long, soft, blue-green needles that droop from the branches in feathery sweeps. Borne five to a bundle in the manner of the white pines, the needles give the whole tree a silvered, weeping softness, and the long, resinous, banana-shaped cones dangle among them like ornaments.
Podocarpus macrophyllus, the yew pine, is a familiar evergreen conifer grown as a shrub or small tree across the southern United States, valued for dense, dark, strap-like leaves several inches long and a tidy, upright frame. 'Okina' is the variegated form, a relatively recent introduction from Japan, whose new growth emerges creamy white before settling to soft green.
This low-growing form of Podocarpus macrophyllus is a compact, spreading evergreen with flat, needle-like leaves that spiral tightly around the stems. Where the ordinary yew pine climbs into an upright shrub or small tree, this selection stays low and horizontal, building a dense, glossy green mat of steady year-round texture and structure.
Pond cypress is the quieter of the two native bald cypresses, a deciduous conifer closely related to the more widespread Taxodium distichum but smaller, tidier, and distinct in leaf. Where bald cypress wears soft, feather-like foliage, pond cypress carries fine, scale-like leaves pressed close and ascending along the shoots, giving the young tree a narrow, almost columnar, pyramidal outline.
Florida yew is one of the rarest conifers in North America, a shrubby evergreen restricted to a single stretch of steep, cool ravines along the eastern bluffs of the Apalachicola River in the Florida Panhandle, and nowhere else on Earth. A shrub or small tree of the shaded understory, the plant carries flat, soft, dark-green needles and, on female plants, the fleshy scarlet arils that mark every yew.
Stinking Cedar is a beautiful conifer despite the name. The foliage actually smells pleasant! It is a medium size pyramidal evergreen tree with Yew-like leaves and purple nutmeg-like fruit on female plants. Needs light organic soil, adequate moisture and part shade. This very rare conifer is native to a very limited area on the Apalachicola River in northwest Florida and adjacent Georgia where it is now almost extinct. It is a FEDERALLY LISTED ENDANGERED SPECIES. CANNOT BE SOLD IN INTERSTATE COMMERCE.
This rare Hemlock from Yunnan Province in China was originally received from the Arnold Arboretum in Massachusetts. It had been obtained from China but was not expected to be hardy in Massachusetts. It proved to be very well adapted to semi-shady situations here in the Deep South where it has become a dark green graceful pyramidal tree. Woodlanders has probably been the first U.S. nursery to offer this tree.
