Create a rainbow with conifers

There are many with an impressive variety of foliage hues and some that will even change colour through the year

Garden conifers have one great advantage and one great drawback. They’re evergreen

– and they’re evergreen! Let me explain. Evergreens have the undoubted benefit of bringing us foliage interest all the year round. But if that foliage is pretty much the same summer and winter, April and autumn… well, the word ‘dull’ comes to mind!

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Firstly, there are conifers that aren’t green. Russet and amber and gold and yellow and blue and grey, the variety of foliage colours is impressive. A few are even variegated. Then there are the varieties that change colour through the year. Many develop golden hues through the winter or change in other ways – it’s almost like having two different plants in the same place. And some conifers aren’t evergreen at all. A few are actually deciduous, they lose their leaves in autumn, and in the best of these the foliage turns to beautiful golden tones before it falls.

But there’s also another dimension – shape. We may start off by thinking that conifers tend to be upright, taller than wide at least, but in fact they range from absolutely horizontal to slender spires to bushy and weeping. Add all that into the mix and you’ll find you have a vast variety of colourful conifers to choose from.