The bareness of winter can leave little to enjoy in our landscape—if they lack evergreens. These plants with everlasting foliage keep your yard interesting during a time of year when other plants with perhaps more zing are not present. They are the tried and true sturdy protectors that warm our grim winter scene. At Eagleson Landscape Company, we employ evergreens in our landscape design for many reasons; screening, accent plants and year-round color are some of the most common.

The Evergreen’s Year-Round Color Advantage

True to the name, evergreen plant foliage provides color the entire year. Contrary to the name, evergreens are not always deep green.  Others are shades of yellow, red or blue. Some evergreen trees and bushes sprout bright berries in winter, have interesting bark texture or color, and grow intricate branching structures, all qualities that add beauty to a winterscape. Those same qualities also make many evergreens great accent plants for a bold statement in your yard.

Nature’s Green Screens

We use vegetative screens for many objectives, such as privacy, hiding unsightly objects, and as backdrops for gardens. A line of blue spruces around a lawn or between yards provides privacy. You can also use Norway spruce, pine, arborvitae and cypress, just to name a few. Any type of spruce will serve you pretty well, but make sure it is a variety that grows to the size you desire.

If your home’s foundation is visible, planting evergreens in front of it will hide the foundation from view, but the evergreens can also help prevent heat loss by shielding the foundation from winter winds. Among the many options for this type of screen is nest spruce, holly, boxwood, and mugo pines.

An unsightly object in your yard, like a shed or electric box, can be hidden by evergreens as well. However, consider that planting a bunch of dark green plants around an object can sometimes draw more attention from viewers and create an odd, out-of-place patch in your overall landscape design.

Using evergreens as a backdrop for your yard or garden helps bring out the colors of the flowers, plants, and deciduous trees in the warm months. A dark-colored evergreen next to a tree with changing autumn leaves creates a great contrast and pops those fall colors out even more.

Evergreens come in many shapes, sizes, and colors.  Not all will fit every location, so fore thought is necessary in order to choose the right plant for the right spot. Each yard and landscape design will require a different type. For example, you can find spruces that grow 50+ feet tall and spruces that stay only 3 feet…and this goes for all evergreens. Once you determine what you need you can start looking through the many varieties available and choose the evergreen you like best.

We at Eagleson Landscape Company love our evergreens. Evergreens stand tall (or short) and proud, proclaiming, “this landscape shall remain beautiful, interesting, and lively while the warm plants slumber!”  They are the hero often ignored, nature’s Clint Eastwood, protectors of our winter-time sanity.