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Those plants called Conifers

© John Bottomley

The word Conifer means simply: specific plants that are cone bearing. There is a large range of plant species within this ambit. A lot of them are amongst the world's largest growing trees, whilst there are others at the smaller end of the scale, some of them ground covering shrubs. One characteristic is that Conifers are all Gymnosperms (plants that do not have their ovules encased in an ovary); they are fertilised by wind blown pollen. The two sexes of the flowers are on separate parts of the tree - see Cedars or Cypresses or on different trees as in Yews or Araucaria.

When we were looking for a bit of variety, and something to cover the ground, that is when we came to the conclusion that the Conifer would be one of the ideal plant for the type of garden we had in mind. We were looking for something, which would fit into a rocky bank, there was also a lot of ground, which was not very productive, and we wanted to cover this so that the weeds would not take over the garden completely. We realised that there are also many of the varieties which grow quite high. These we planned to use as focal points for some of the open areas. We chose a Monterey Cypress and a tasmanica (syn robusta) a large growing conifer from South Australia.

As well as the above we have two Cupresses sempervirens, Swanes Golden Pencil Pine, these are golden with closely packed foliage, and two Thuja orientalis (Golden Biota), which have compact golden foliage and the classic candle flame shaped growth. I planted them as a border to one of our garden beds some three years ago and they haven't reached a great height even yet. I have trimmed them a little on the top, and whilst I didn't want to go in for topiary, I thought I would try to shape them a little. Most varieties of conifers will stand some pruning, and all I have done is flatten the tops a little. They provide a very interesting and shapely border to this particular part of the garden.

In the same part of the garden there are few of the prostrate variety. Juniperus horizontalis 'Blue Rug', gives a good matting effect, stands very extreme conditions and looks very good in a rockery. There is also a Juniperus virginiana 'Grey Owl', a low and dense spreading bush with beautiful grey foliage. This one is also very hardy and good for the rockery.