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 rigida, the temple or needle juniper, is a graceful conifer of the windswept hills and old temple gardens of China, Korea, and Japan, distinctive for long, slender, sharply pointed needles that catch the light. 'Pendula' is the weeping form, unfurling those bright needles from arching, drooping limbs in a cascade of green that moves with the wind, a plant of quiet, sculptural dignity.
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.
A refined and rarely offered evergreen from New Zealand, Podocarpus acutifolius forms a dense, finely textured silhouette of short, sharp-tipped leaves that give the plant a crisp, architectural presence. Heat-tolerant and well suited to the southern United States when properly sited, this uncommon conifer offers structure, restraint, and year-round depth in the landscape.
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.
Pseudolarix kaempferi, better known by the synonym Pseudolarix amabilis and the common name golden larch, is a rare, slow-growing deciduous conifer native to eastern China. Despite the name, the golden larch is not a true larch but the sole member of its own genus, Pseudolarix, prized for a graceful broad-pyramidal form, soft texture, and a brilliant golden fall color that rivals any maple or ginkgo.
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.
A dwarf form of one of Japan's legendary Five Sacred Trees of Kiso, the goboku no kinbatsu, a select group of conifers protected by feudal law for centuries, reserved for imperial residences and temple construction, where commoners caught poaching the wood faced execution. The species, Thujopsis dolabrata, is endemic to Japan and known there as asunaro, a name that translates beautifully and a little wistfully as tomorrow it will become hinoki, a nod to the tree's resemblance to the more revered hinoki cypress, forever almost but not quite the more famous tree. Thujopsis is the sole species in the entire genus.
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.
Botanists now file this hemlock under Tsuga dumosa, the Himalayan hemlock, though the tree reached American gardens, and reached us, as Tsuga yunnanensis. The two names describe one tree seen from opposite ends of a very long range: dumosa, meaning bushy, from the Nepalese and Bhutanese end, and yunnanensis from the Chinese. Kew's Plants of the World Online treats the Yunnan name as a synonym, so the accepted name comes first here and the old one stays in parentheses, because that is the name most people will be searching for.
