By Robert Gillmore

Unlike deciduous trees (which I described last time) evergreen trees don’t produce dazzling spring flowers or spectacular fall foliage.

But they do have many other strengths:

► Their green or—even better—blue or yellow needles provide welcome color and interest in winter, when deciduous plants have lost their leaves and nothing is in bloom.

► They’re strong accents and focal points.

► They make excellent year-round privacy screens. They’re especially valuable—sometimes indispensable—on in-town properties that need taller barriers than a fence to create seclusion.

► They’re ideal for year-round windbreaks.

Fast-growing trees will create tall barriers relatively quickly, and some of the fastest-growing evergreen trees are pines.

Known for its soft, and soft-looking, blue-green needles, the familiar Eastern white pine (Pinus strobus) grows relatively fast—eventually to 80 feet high. Like every other tree mentioned in this article, it’s hardy to Zone 3 (average minimum temperature: -40 degrees Fahrenheit), so it’ll survive in any region of New Hampshire. (Like other fast-growing trees, however, its wood is weaker than other species,’ so its branches can break in high winds.)

Red, or Norway, pine (Pinus resinosa) grows slower than white pine, so it’s less susceptible to wind damage, and it’s more picturesque. It’s named for its scaly orange-red or orange-brown bark—which, in older trees, flakes off in large, flat, reddish-brown plates—and its long, dark green, exotic-looking needles grow tufted with age.

Scotch, or Scots, pine (Pinus sylvestris) produces peeling reddish-orange or orange-brown bark, longish needles, interesting branch structure and, when older, an impressive broad, umbrella-like shape. The striking needles of the cultivar ‘Aurea’ are yellowish green when new, gold in winter.

Japanese red pine (Pinus densiflora) is named for its orangish to orange-red bark. On young trees, the bark peels. On older trees it fissures into picturesque oblong plates. This pine is one of the most decorative species because it has a picturesque irregular shape even when it’s young. The needles of the cultivar ‘Aurea’ turn bright golden yellow in winter.

Both Japanese red pines and Scotch pines grow slower than white pines, and no more than 60 feet high, so they may make better accents than privacy screens.

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The thick needle foliage, tight branching and strong cone shape of spruces and firs are powerful focal points—they can dominate almost any landscape, especially in winter. They’re also denser than pines, so they make solid privacy screens. Most spruces and firs don’t tolerate heat or drought as well as pines, however; they prefer cool weather and moist soil. If you plant them, make sure they’re well mulched.

The most colorful spruce is the Colorado blue (Picea pungens ‘Glauca’), named for its prickly steel blue needles. The cultivar ‘Continental’ grows more slowly but it produces intense blue foliage. Both can grow 60 feet high.

If you don’t need tall blue spruces for screening, there are many shorter cultivars, some of them even more colorful than the species. Both ‘Hoopsi’ and ‘Thompsenii’ grow 50 feet high and produce thick silver-blue needles. ‘Blue Select’ creates blue foliage and reaches 40 feet. ‘Fat Albert’ sports blue needles and grows to 30 feet.

Canadian, or Eastern, hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) isn’t as colorful as Colorado spruces. But like spruces, this graceful, soft-looking evergreen can provide dense screening. It’s also the only large shade-tolerant evergreen tree hardy in New Hampshire, so it’s the only large tree that can be used for privacy screens in shady places.

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Large evergreen trees not only grow tall, of course. They also get wide—depending on the species, at least 10 or 15 feet and at much as 30 or 40 feet at maturity. If your garden is small, and you still need high privacy screens, you’ll need narrower trees, such as the so-called fastigiate, or columnar, varieties of Eastern, or American, arborvitae (Thuja occidentalis) or eastern red cedar (Juniperus virginiana), both of which are hardy to Zone 3.

The arborvitae cultivar George Peabody (‘Lutea’) grows 30 to 35 feet high but only 15 feet wide and—a bonus—it sports golden yellow needles. Dark American arborvitae (‘Nigra’) grows 20 to 30 feet high and 10 to 12 feet wide. ‘Wintergreen,’ ‘Emerald Green’ (‘Smaragd’) and ‘deGroot's Spire’ all grow 15 to 20 feet tall, but the first grows only 5 to 6 feet wide, the second only 3 to 6 feet wide, and the third just 3 or 4 feet wide, so they’re real space savers.

Because of their scaly foliage and tall, narrow profile, you may not find fastigiate arborvitae as lovely or as graceful as other evergreen trees. Also, deer love them, so don’t plant them where deer like to browse.

Instead, you can plant eastern red cedar, which grows 30 to 40 feet tall but only 15 to 20 feet wide. Several cultivars, such as ‘Emerald Sentinel’ and ‘Hillspire,’ grow 15 to 20 feet high but only 6 to 8 feet wide. The skinny ‘Taylor’ reaches 20 to 30 feet high but only 3 or 4 feet wide.

Like most junipers, eastern red cedar is a tough, adaptable plant and seldom bothered by deer.

Robert Gillmore is a landscape designer and author of The Woodland Garden and Beauty All Around You: How to Create Large Lush Low-Maintenance Gardens, Even on Small Lots and Small Budgets. Evergreen, his one-acre woodland garden in Goffstown, will be open to the public, without charge, each spring, when its 220 Catawba rhododendrons are at or near peak bloom. For more information e-mail evergreenfoundationnh@gmail.com or call 603-497-8020.