By Jim McCausland, Sunset Magazine
Joe Williamson, who was beloved garden editor of Sunset Magazine for decades, had a particular fondness for broadleaved evergreens. He called them "Western privilege plants" because those of us who live in mild parts of the far West can grow more kinds of them than gardeners at the same latitudes anywhere else in the country.
His personal favorites were Eucalyptus (still the most widely planted non-native trees in California), but he was nearly as crazy about tea trees (Leptospermum), all kinds of citrus, camellias (left), Aucubas, gardenias, Natal plums, and any number of native oaks. When I moved to the Washington State in 1978, I expected my choices in such plants to just about vanish.
Was I wrong. There are dozens of possibilities, all of which can give mass, structure, and substance to the winter garden. Here are some favorites, each of which gives you at least one extra reason to love it.
Trees
•For winter flowers, my favorite is strawberry tree, Arbutus unedo. This garden-scale evergreen produces its small, white, urn-shaped flowers in late fall and winter, giving overwintering Anna’s hummingbirds a nectar source when not much else is available. Its golf-ball-size red, yellow, and green fruits appear after blooms fade.
•For fragrant leaves, Eucalyptus is still unbeatable, and there are many kinds to choose from. Crush the leaves to get that penetrating, cough-drop scent.
Shrubs
•For intoxicating late-winter fragrance, grow Daphne odora. This plant seems to do best near a sidewalk (liking the lime from the cement, perhaps?); out in the open garden it does fine for a few years, then commits daphnicide.
•For bluer-than-blue winter berries, Dichora febrifuga (pictured at right) is unsurpassed. This is a good choice for growing in half shade.
•For fragrant foliage, go to a nursery and rub the leaves of any small-leaved rhododendron between your hands, then smell your fingers. Most rhododendrons that have small leaves have a rich, totally unexpected piney scent that you’ll love.
Vines
•For vanilla-scented March flowers, grow Clematis armandii. Run it along a fence or deck rail: you’ll never again be without it. That's it scrambling over an entry arbor at left.
Natives
•These make a list that could fill your garden. Try wax myrtle, manzanita, Ceanothus, coyote brush, several evergreen oaks, salal, evergreen huckleberry, twin flower, California bay laurel, tanoak, rhododendron, and Oregon grape, to name a few.
Madrona (Arbutus menziesii, pictured below) is one of my own personal favorites. It thrives in full sun and terrible soil—just witness the colonies of madronas that spring up on steep road cuts along Interstate 5 in Washington and Oregon—and gives you back wonderful peeling red bark that reveals tan and green bark beneath. It's hard to establish in the garden (hates transplanting) and can get leaf spot, but I love it anyway.
Joe was onto something. We really are rich in categories of plants that most American gardeners can only dream about, and broadleaved evergreens in particular make our gardens better places in all seasons, not just when the weather is warm.
What are your own favorites?
