Providing a landscape in the summer,
they take center stage in winter

Evergreens are what give a garden winter presence. Imagine a winter garden without evergreens, and you soon see their importance. Without them, the garden would be a monochrome affair, or at best a medley of grays, copper and straw colors. Design evergreens for both winter and summer. Arrange it so that they are an integral part of the summer picture, and so that they make a satisfactory picture on their own in the winter. 

Think what evergreens have to offer. They can provide mass through all twelve months of the year. You can use evergreens to be the anchors of a garden, because they keep their solidity and weight all year. 

Winter solidity is hugely useful. Hedges rather than walls or fences can close sight lines. Produce rhythm when you mix evergreens with deciduous shrubs. In summer, the two may blend to make a seamless flowing border or woodland edge. 

Perhaps the ideal proportion of evergreens to deciduous plants is this:

• Maintain the summer extravagance of perennials and flowering shrubs, but still have enough evergreens to make a well-defined and attractive winter scene.

A Reminder for Perennial Gardens...

Perennial gardens, especially newly planted ones, can suffer a lot of damage in the freeze/thaw cycle that winter presents. Because perennials are smaller and lighter, they rise and fall with the temperatures every day. This causes tender roots to be broken, and can either kill or badly damage the plants. We recommend mulching with salt marsh hay or other moisture penetrable mulch to prevent the thawing of the ground on warmer winter days. The key to this mulching is not to apply the mulch until the ground freezes to the depth of the root zone of the plants. This usually occurs sometime between Christmas and New years in our area. In late Fall, cut back and clean up the dead plant tops and purchase and store the mulching material in a dry place. When the ground is frozen, apply 4-6” of covering over the entire bed.  That is it.  Remove mulch in the spring when new shoots start to appear and nighttime temperatures stay above 30 degrees.