Small conifer trees can be a great addition to your yard or landscape. Erik Helland of Landscape Garden Center of Sioux Falls has some tips on selecting, growing and maintaining these trees and shrubs. He says thinking about what plants look like in winter isn’t always top of mind when selecting a tree, but it’s a good idea when selecting a conifer.
“Small conifers are great to use because they provide a winter interest,” Helland said. “Right now, we haven't been thinking about winter at all. We've been enjoying so much of this sunshine and all of these growing days. But the wintertime, sadly enough, is when we see our landscape the most because we're stuck inside and we are inside looking out of the windows. So conifers - evergreens, spruce, pine - they're called many different things. Conifers or evergreens are one of those trees that provide habitat for birds. It's a great place for them to find shelter. You can put the bird feeder out there in the wintertime and that's where they're going to hang out. They're great plants. Small conifers we call specimen trees because they're going to be a focal point within your landscape that's either going to screen or it's going to attract your attention.
Helland says location and soil condition are important considerations when planting conifers.
“Where to plant small conifers? You're going to want to have a great soil. Make sure it's not sitting in clay. Make sure that that soil has been really amended with a lot of good peat moss and that it's well drained. Try to have that conifer in full sun. If you don't have full sun what you're going to notice is the backs of the tree or the one side of the tree may be a little bit thinner. That may happen. You're not going to have a perfect situation because you're going to have a lot of other things going on around in that landscape. So conifers are excellent plants to use within a landscape, especially a small landscape in the backyard or front yard, just to provide a focal point, a backdrop or even screening, they’re great plants to use."
Small conifers are typically slow-growing, so they won't overgrow a site within a few years. They take a long time to establish, but once they are established, they can become a major focal point of your landscape. If you have questions for Erik Helland, send them to: [email protected]. He may answer your question on-the-air during the South Dakota Home Garden segment, Wednesdays on SDPB Radio's "In the Moment."