Looking beyond junipers for evergreen ground covers

If you want to make a gardener squirm, ask, "Ever been under a big old juniper?" That itchy-scritchy feeling overwhelms any possible attraction for these evergreens.

Overplanted for years, the "tam" junipers or 'Pfitzer' (Juniperus sabina 'Tamariscifolia' or J. chinensis 'Pfitzeriana') make darling children, grow to intractable adolescents and mature horribly. Removing a full-grown specimen requires a chainsaw and bandages for skin scraped by piercing needles. These awful needles inflict scratches on even well-protected skin, sneaking through shirts and pants and underwear.

Often the sole inhabitants of older foundation plantings and streetside rockeries, ground-cover junipers deserve replacing. Perhaps you're staring at an old, gloomy group wondering, "What next?" or looking for planting ideas to avoid getting stuck on the juniper cliché.

Let's look for focus for evergreen plantings: I want something gentle to touch, intriguing in color, refined in mature shape. Talking with a plant expert will help. November's a fine month for visiting a local independent nursery. They definitely can raise your temperature about small conifers, ranging in shape from buns to exclamation points and in color from distinct blue to bronzy black-green.

A walk with Jim Fox at Wells-Medina Nursery gave me both ideas and inspiration. Since the landscape objective means replacing ground-eating junipers, we're seeking plants with a ground-covering habit, the tendency to be wider than tall. Their garden requirements vary: Like the hated junipers, most appreciate excellent winter drainage. Sitting in soggy soil discourages most conifers. Some take full sun; others require protection from hottest afternoon rays.

Fox started me out with a surprising group: the alpine podocarpus (Podocarpus). A Southern Hemisphere native, these resemble yew with finer textured soft needles, which, Fox notes, "prune beautifully." They carry a lighter blue or glaucous tint under the upper surface dark green. Handy for filling in a shrub border, alpine podocarpus grow slowly to 5 feet high and 4 feet wide with pruning. Place them in sun or part shade with protection from strongest afternoon sun. A softie in the group is Podocarpus alpinus (also known as lawrencei) 'Blue Gem.' With a lacy, bluish texture, it's feminine (not what I'd usually say about a plant).

Another delicious and unexpected genera, the Cryptomeria, may be best known, as small trees retain needles but darken in winter to near-deathly looking brown. Fox points out that the basic evergreen/brown cryptomeria has been developed and hybridized into many elegant smaller trees. "These are to conifers what Acer palmatum is to Japanese maples — a source of material to use breeding new plants."

Just as there are hundreds of brilliant and interesting Japanese maples, so the cryptomerias have been coaxed into small stature and bright colors. You can imagine using these as elegant accent plants, deep textured green, some like Cryptomeria japonica 'Birodo' reaching only 1 foot tall by 10 inches wide. It resembles the delicious texture on moss, feathery and refreshing. My favorite, Cryptomeria japonica 'Tansu,' stays compact and has a soft light-green, yew-like texture. These don't resemble pines — their needles are short and lined up closely along the branches.

If you love pines, there are handsome small forms of nearly all pine species, which could be called "dwarf" but escape the dumpy connotations of Sneezy, Grumpy and Dopey. Pinus strobus 'Nana,' wonderfully touchable, as are all white pines, develops into a 4-by-4-foot accent, with appropriately miniature pine cones. These pines, like many of the smaller conifers, grow slowly and are difficult to propagate, thus can be more expensive.

Wander your favorite independent nursery for holiday plants, perhaps selecting an evergreen that can be decorated with a net of outdoor lights and then become a permanent part of the landscape.

Garden expert Mary Robson, retired area horticulture agent for Washington State University/King County Cooperative Extension, shares gardening tips every Wednesday. Her e-mail is marysophia@earthlink.net.