Book Browsing: Gardening with Conifers

The male flowers and foliage of the Boston pine, Pinus heldreichii, in late spring.
Photo by Adrian and Richard Bloom.

If you are seeking the definitive book on conifers, look no further than Adrian Bloom's Gardening with Conifers. Bloom, a horticulturist, has 35 years experience in growing conifers and is a regular visitor to ?EUR??,,????'??The Victory Garden?EUR??,,????'?? program on Boston's PBS station WGBH. His six-acre garden at Bressingham, Norfolk, England is known for its colorful selection of conifers. He began planting conifers there in the early 1960s and has accumulated 500 varieties.

The book describes 200 varieties of coniferous trees and shrubs available to the North American gardener and includes a list of 650 of the best cultivars. The photography is simply beautiful. You may think of conifers as your large, basic green-colored trees. Nature, however, is a wonder. Conifers come in every size from miniatures that grow less than 3' in a 100 years to the Pacific Coast redwoods that tower 400 feet. Conifer cones can be smaller than a pea or almost as large as a football. Conifers are among the oldest living plants, like the 4,500 year old bristlecone pine specimens. Conifers can be deciduous or evergreen and their leaves can display a beautiful range of colors: hues of powder-blue; orange; yellow; cream-colored; red; and bright grass-green.

The chapters include: The Magic of Conifers; A Close Look at Conifers; Using Conifers in the Garden; Some of the Best Conifers; and Caring for the Conifers. Bloom offers expert advice on size and growth rates; site and soil preferences; planting, maintenance and propagation; pruning, pests and diseases; dwarf conifers and ground covers; and conifers in containers.