Winter’s warrıors
Evergreens that stand tall and leafy throughout the year will give your garden structure, says Monty Don
DESPITE electricity and all the glaring wizardry of technology that has transformed the world over the past 25 years, gardeners above all are tuned into the seasons and natural light by the same wiring that fired our stone-age forefathers. This is why evergreens are such important and ancient symbols of continuing life and fertility in the midst of winter. On a prosaic level, when the flowers are gone and the trees have shed all their leaves, evergreens supply colour and form to what would otherwise be very bleak spaces.
There are only five native evergreen trees in these parts – yew, box, holly, Scots pine and juniper – and the latter two have always been comparatively rare. So for most of our history, right up until the introduction of foreign evergreens which began in the 16th century and picked up pace in the late 18th century, there were very few green trees in midwinter and they were almost invariably yew, holly or box.
The best of these, the king of all evergreens, is yew (Taxus baccatta). No other hedge has such depth of structure or colour, or provides such a good backdrop for a border. It is ideal for topiary and has been used as such for centuries. Yew will last indefinitely (the oldest yew trees here are reckoned to be more than 4,000 years old), it grows strongly but never wildly, can be clipped hard and will, like holly and box but unlike cedars, cypresses, larches and pines, regrow from the bare wood. It takes easily from cuttings, and as long as it has good drainage (it really hates sitting in wet ground) is very little trouble to grow.
Apart from the familiar T. baccata, which I’ve grown as hedging and as large cones in my front garden – as well as a topiary specimen of my dog Nigel – I am very fond of the Irish yew, T. baccata ‘Fastigiata’. We have had a number in the garden for 20 years, and some in the Cottage Garden have grown big. But last winter I planted 18 more in our new herb garden. This space used to be occupied by 64 large box balls but these had to be removed when afflicted by box blight. The Irish yews have changed the whole emphasis from a rolling series of essentially horizontal shapes to a series of green columns – but the purpose is the same, to provide a green structure, especially in winter.
Churchyard Irish yews become rather baggy and cigar shaped but they can be clipped hard and if done so from early on will remain slim and neat columns.
It is believed all existing Irish yews in the world derive from a single tree in Northern Ireland. In about 1770 a farmer found two unusual yew trees growing on a rocky hillside in County Fermanagh. The foliage of both was an especially dark green and every branch and twig grew straight upright. He dug them up, planted one in his own garden and gave the other to his landlord, Lord Enniskillen, who planted it at Florence Court. After about 100 years the farmer’s tree died but Lord Enniskillen’s prospered and, although it does not come true from seed, it reproduces perfectly from cuttings.
It remains just about the only truly hardy version of the continental cypress that will take any amount of clipping to make an everlasting, winter-defying symbol of hope. And ever hopeful of the joys that our gardens will bring to us, I wish you all a very happy New Year.