Why Evergreens are Essential
We’ve just experienced our third suffocating heatwave of 2025 and it’s only mid-July. When temperatures are this blisteringly hot it’s hard to believe we ever have to consider the frost-tolerance of our plants. Driving along the motorway today, surrounded by lush green trees and verges, I found myself strangely yearning for the crisp stillness of a deep winter; for white skies and barren, aphid-free vegetation. “How ungrateful” you must think. (In my defence, I am ginger and not built for these temperatures.)
The height of the summer has always had me yearning for late autumn days when I can pull on my boots, a warm jumper and snuggle up with a book by the fire. There’s an exhilarating minimalism to a British winter when things are just… less… and somehow, it makes it easier for me to breathe.
We humans have a deep connection to the changing of the seasons and for me this connection has become stronger as I’ve got older. Each year that passes becomes a smaller percentage of one’s overall life, so time seems to accelerate and the seasons appear to change more rapidly. Every year that I watch, I notice something new… This year it has been the way that fir tree needles emerge in June from tiny brown buds, feathery soft and silky in their infancy. I’ve noticed the timing of vegetation appearing on hibiscus - a reminder to always grow something to conceal their lingering nakedness until they leaf up in May. I’ve also noted the month when rudbeckia starts to grow and drown out the smaller plants in front of them before they’ve even bloomed. (All noted for future design work).
We spend a good deal of our time in Britain in the dreary cold. From October to April it can be pretty barren if you only have plants and trees that are dormant in winter (deciduous trees and herbaceous perennials). It’s for this precise reason that I constantly advocate for evergreen interest, which I know bores my clients to tears, but it is vital to have stability and greenery throughout the year. Plants that give seasonal interest are definitely worth including in your garden as well, but a basic evergreen structure should be the bones upon which your garden is hung.
There are many solid reasons to invest in evergreen plants. This very greenness is proven to boost your mental wellbeing when you look at it, calming the nervous system. They can provide privacy, shelter, habitats, produce oxygen and cool the earth. They can provide the greenness in spaces where there is no lawn. They look lush in the rain, majestic in the frost and snow and bring a sense of life to the garden all year round.
Below are pictures of my three favourite evergreens. These pictures are from my own garden, so you can see I have parted with my own money to buy, plant and nurture them. They are not the showstopper plants you will see put at the front of the garden centre to entice an impulse purchase, so you’ll have to ask or look for them - usually garden centres have an A-Z of shrubs you can look through - this will be done using their botanical names. Otherwise, it’s easy to find them online.
For a full list of all of my favourite evergreen plants and which ones to avoid, click here.
Choisya ternata Mexican Orange Blossom
Sarcococca confusa Sweet Box
Griselinia littoralis New Zealand Privet