Growing Wise : evergreens

Holiday Clippings

Elisabeth — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 12:33:00 GMT

If you are trying to save a little money on holiday decorations, take stock of the plants already in your yard. Any kind of evergreen--yew, rhododendron, pine, hemlock, arborvitae, spruce--can be used in holiday flower arrange or to "deck the halls". Cut long branches and wire them together for roping to adorn stairways or mantles. Add smaller pieces to wreathes to fatten them up. Even "nontraditional" greens like variegated euonymous can be combined with holly, winterberry holly or hypericum berries for festive arrangements or hangings.

Since I didn't get the time to prune an overgrown yew last summer or fall, I combined two jobs--pruning and gathering holiday greens--and came away with an armload of yew boughs. Armed only with clippers, a package of florist's wire and four small candles, I made an Advent wreath. I am not particularly "crafty", but the end results look pretty good.

I will also use the various boughs and branches to decorate my porch and fill the empty pots by the front door.

Going "green" can mean making the best use of the greens that you have on hand. They are free for the taking and biodegradable after the holidays are over.

Garden Bones

Elisabeth — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 18:01:00 GMT

Gardeners always talk about the "bones" of a garden. It sounds good, but what does it really mean? Just as bones give structure to the human body, landscape "bones" give structure to the garden. "Bones" include the layout, the hardscaping and plants like shrubs and trees that provide shape and interest year in and year out. This time of year--when annuals are dead, perennials have died back to the ground and deciduous shrubs and trees have dropped their leaves--is a good time to see your garden's "bones".

Deciduous shrubs can help give structure to a garden, especially if their branches form distinctive shapes.

Evergreens contribute substantially to the "bones" of a garden. From the tallest Norway Spruce to the shortest carpet juniper, evergreens maintain not only shape but color in every season. No garden should be without them and the variety of sizes, colors and shapes is astonishing. For every standard yew, boxwood, arbor vitae, juniper, rhododendron, euonymus and holly, there are many variations. People with small gardens or collections of containers can choose from an every-expanding range of small cultivars to use as accents. Right now evergreen varieties with a greenish gold cast like Thuja occidentalis 'Yellow Ribbon' are popular. They are great for lightening up dark places as well as providing bones.

Look around your own garden. If there aren't enough evergreens make a note to order more in the spring.

News on Yews

Elisabeth — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 16:32:00 GMT

My house came with several overgrown yew shrubs (Taxus) that stood in front of the high stone foundation. At first I found little to love about these bushes, except that they seemed relatively inoffensive and were not hard to take care of. At the time I was much more in favor of flowering shrubs and thought longingly of the day when I could afford to hire someone with a truck and a chain to come and yank the yews out.

Now, ten years later, a couple of the yews are gone, but a couple remain, pruned into shapes that are less bulky than the ones I found when we moved into our house. I especially appreciate the red berries, which few writers mention, except to say that they are poisonous to humans.

The berries are plump and scarlet and make a big visual impact in the cold winter months. They are also, I have discovered, not poisonous to birds and squirrels. The other day, I saw a squirrel in a variety of awkward positions--upside down, sideways and leaning at odd angles--grabbing the berries and stuffing them into its mouth. Several of its relatives were doing the same thing on different branches. I have also seen starlings and blue jays gobbling the yew fruits. None of the animals or birds were in the throes of death by poisoning.

The other thing that you can do with yew branches in these lean economic times is use them for holiday decorations and arrangements. You can deck your halls with yews just as easily as you can deck your halls with other evergreens and they look just as good. If you have small children or domestic pets that might chew on the needles or swallow the berries, it is probably better to pick other decorating materials, but if you can put the yew out of reach or don't have child or pet worries, clip some branches. Your holiday joy will increase and your wallet will stay full.