Green Architecture

Why evergreen structure is so important in a garden

From my desk at home I look out on my front garden. It’s a small cottage garden with a picket fence dividing it from the village lane. In summer it is full of hollyhocks, poppies, dianthus, alchemilla and many other colourful cottage garden plants that people turn their heads towards as they walk past. As befits a cottage garden the flowers are thrown together in a fairly random way so it always feels as if it’s on the edge of anarchy, but the chaos is brought back from the brink by a strong framework of loosely clipped evergreen shrubs whose rounded shapes give the garden a calm rhythm whatever the time of year. Right now the garden is looking drab and sorry for itself, but thanks to the foundation of evergreens, there is always something to hold the eye.