I find it surprising that while most of us love seasonal colour in our gardens, conifers don't feature more highly on the shopping list. After all, they deliver on so many counts...
There are days nominated to celebrate apples, festivals for tomatoes and chillies, and whole weeks to inform us about bird nesting boxes, trees, allotments and composting ... and this week it's the turn of the conifer.
The Association of British Conifer Growers are trying to persuade us all that there's a conifer for every garden, and we should all be growing more. National Conifer Week started last Saturday 3 October and runs through to Sunday 11 October, with a message to everyone that conifers are 'creative, colourful and convenient'. In other words, they'd like us all to buy and plant more of these valuable evergreen shrubs.
I find it surprising that while most of us love seasonal colour in our gardens, and invest a great deal of time and money in pot displays and mixed borders, that conifers don't feature more highly on the shopping list. After all, they deliver on so many counts, and provide striking structural building blocks in any garden.
Perhaps their reputation for growing too large puts people off. Going back 25 years or so, I remember a craze for dwarf conifers. However, although many varieties were sold as small plants, in small pots, they gradually grew larger by the year. What started as perfectly proportioned small conifers gradually grew, and eventually grew too large.
Let's be fair. All plants grow, and many trees, shrubs, perennials and climbers can grow too tall or wide for their site, so this isn't just a 'problem' with conifers.
As always when choosing plants, do your homework, get advice from an expert, and choose the right plant for the position and space you can provide.
Reading news of declining house sparrow populations over past years, I only have to look out into my garden to watch them flock to my bird table each day. And which plants do they choose to nest and take shelter in? Conifers of course.
Having started my own horticultural training by working on a nursery, growing hardy nursery stock including conifers, I still remember encountering superb varieties for the first time. Please don't be put off by their Latin names but take a closer look at Chamaecyparis pisifera 'Boulevard' and Cryptomeria japonica 'Elegans'. These conifers love to be touched and stroked.
When did you last get close-up and personal with any plant in your garden? Conifers are truly tactile plants crying out to be fondled ... but gently, of course.
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