Green and SERENE

Make room for lush, low-maintenance evergreens that give year-round interest

- CHRIS MORLEY

Horticultural helpers 

As useful as they are beautiful, evergreen plants hold onto their leaves all through the year. This simple fact makes them multitasking heroes, providing 12 months of shape, texture and colour. While taking centre stage in winter, many retreat into the background in spring and summer, becoming a green canvas against which seasonal plants strut their stuff. Use them to solve niggling design problems too, from covering up an bin store to adding privacy to a seating area.

BARE BONES

For strong, structural lines, an evergreen hedge of box, yew or Portuguese laurel is a versatile choice. It will help blur boundaries, disguise fences, pick out pathways, or work as a divider to create garden rooms.

Get a looser structural look with groups of mounding shrubs, like grey-green Hebe topiaria (H. 60cm) or darkstemmed Pittosporum 'Tom Thumb' (H. 1m). These domes will lead the eye around the garden and help knit it together.