8 Plant Evergreens for Year ’Round Beauty 

The Indispensable Evergreens 
Conifers include both trees and shrubs, all of them with needle or scale-like evergreen foliage. Per- 
haps the fact that some of the world’s finest “grow wild in the hills” explains their absence on so many 
home grourmé@s but it’s algo a fact that a home without evergreens in winter presents a dismal, naked 
sight that emphasizes the general dreariness of the season. 
Yet it is so easy to change this with a simple foundation planting of a few carefully selected dwarf 
conifers complemented by colorful flowering dwarf deciduous shrubs, and to plant a few of the large trees 
at the rear of the property. With properly planned, attractive evergreen background winter seems short- 
er and much more pleasant; nothing is a more beautiful sight than evergreens frosted with new snow. 
Largest and fastest-growing of all are the pines; massive, rugged, best planted at the far end of a 
vista. Slightly smaller and of slower growth is our world-famous Colorado Spruce. They make perfect 
backgrounds for the flowering shrubs of spring, for the berries of autumn and winter’s tracery of bright 
bark and twigs. fj 
For more intimate planting in garden borders and in foundation groups the junipers are unexcelled, 
embracing a wide range of size, shapes and colors. Their feathery texture is light compared to the pines 
and spruces but its density strikes a solid and dominant note in any combination with deciduous shrubs, 
particularly during the half-year these are without leaves. 
The Mugho Pine is the baby of the family, often requiring a lifetime to attain a 12-foot height. It 
is generally used in foundation plantings where once-a-year pruning will keep it below four or five feet 
almost indefinitely. 

