My list of complaints is long, starting with its short life. Plus, it just doesn’t work in a border. To make room for other plants you end up removing so many lower branches the damn thing looks ridiculous.
Worst of all, this plant reminds me of how little I knew when I planted it and how thoughtlessly I made choices. Its large all-wrongness is getting me down. Not once but twice I bought this horticultural mistake produced by our own National Arboretum. But one has already fallen and the other won’t last long. And thank goodness, too, because its very weakness means the City of Takoma Park will allow me to remove it. Hey, not long ago even this crappy tree would have been protected, until our crazy tree law was finally relaxed to the level of sanity. (Have I mentioned how knee-jerk-left we are here in kooky Takoma? It’s still way better than knee-jerk right.)
But moving on. After hating this thing for about a decade, I’ve excitedly decided to remove it and replace it w
ith my new passion in plants - no surprise to readers here - conifers. So imagine this: a small grove of something like pine, cedar, cyprus or arbovitae. I’m thinking three of one kind in a dark green mixed with two of another species in a lighter green.
O gardeners of the world, what conifers make your heart quicken?
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Heather 01.12.06 at 9:28 am
Hmmm, I guess between the tropical leanings in zone 9 (okay 8B if you’re one to split hairs) and growing up in North East Texas where 3/4 of the trees are pine trees (yawn)… I’m not much of a conifer kind of gal. I DO however, like the little dwarf ones. I think you have one somewhere in a foundation planting or something that I went, “Ohh, yeah, I like that.”
But hooray for the PB removal! The second best thing in gardening, I think, is ridding your life of a plant you hate. One of the highlights of my gardening career is ripping out those Indian Hawthorns that my builder put in. Oh what a blessed joy that was. My heart still leaps with pleasure at the memory of my garbage can full of those characterless balls of green. I was just eyeing my neighbor’s IH’s this morning and thinking, “I wonder if she’d notice if I ripped those out and put in butterfly bushes?”
Kasmira 01.12.06 at 2:09 pm
Jeffrey Pine! When the sun heats the bark, it smells just like butterscotch. This is my absolute favorite conifer.
Sandy 01.12.06 at 6:04 pm
My favorite conifers of all time are Cryptomerias. Love them, can’t get enough of them. Big ones, little ones. I love so many different kinds of conifers it is hard to choose. Word of warning. There is such thing as too many conifers in the garden. Broadleaf evergreens are a nice compliment.
Gardening crash-test dummy 01.12.06 at 7:01 pm
If I had to choose a conifer I would have to choose the spruce family, especially the blue spruces.
It’s good to hear that someone else has to suffer from inane laws about cutting trees down. Our council, in their wisdom, planted some peppermint saplings on the verge of each house in our estate (like our area needs more peppermints!!). Unfortunately I slipped with the chainsaw as I was cutting some weeds around it and it died soon after we accidentally dug the root ball up.
Judith 01.12.06 at 8:08 pm
Right on about the Bradford Pear! Part of me is laughing as I have planted this one when I lived in the city–trying to gain privacy in a postage stamp size backyard (& impatient)–the tree annoyed me so much I had to move–well, that wasn’t really why I moved…but almost. I’d love to get cedar if I could find it. I think all/most gardeners have regrets after planting some of the things we plant?
Val 01.13.06 at 5:21 am
Conifers of any sort are dear to me. On the university campus where I work there is a conifer “garden” around a central pond in one of the large spaces enclosed by buildings - it’s been wonderful to watch them grow in all their shapes and shadings.
Closer to home, when we bought our house 11 years ago, the vendors had put 6 Castlewellan Gold http://www.fernview.com.au/varieties/cupressocyparis_castlewellan.php plants all in a row along the back veranda. If we had let them be, the whole of our back garden would have been hidden from the house behind an impenetrable wall, throwing our house into perpetual gloom. My husband carefully moved them to strategically chosen areas along the fence. All flourished and now provide privacy without overwhelming because they are not clumped together.
Pam L 01.14.06 at 9:31 am
I grew up surrounded, literally, by pines, the large white “pitch pines” that were to rough to climb for kids and dripped sap everywhere. They made for great bonfires with their fallen needles, but you can’t do that anymore.So I’m not a big fan of pines, but I love my blue upright junipers. They look great with the roseglow barberries and sea green junipers planted nearby for contrast.
Nelumbo 01.15.06 at 12:53 am
I like the conifer idea. Our neighborhood association had the opposite request- they would *love* for you to cut down pear trees. For some reason our builder planted several right on the street, and so they tend to hang over in the street when some of our neighbors don’t prune them enough.
You’ve gotten me thinking seriously about removing those crepe myrtles that are just in the wrong spot…