Why Needled Evergreens Get No Respect

August 12th, 2025

   Needled evergreens take a back seat to flowers, flowering shrubs, and pretty much every other aspect of the summer landscape.

   These landscape staples are often considered little more than “backdrop plants” or necessary additions to keep the yard from looking completely bare in winter.

   Color-lovers diss them for being plain green all year long. They look the same in July as they do in May or November or March.

   Add to that the fact that most yardeners tend to stick with the same few boring choices – then shear them into production-line boxes and balls, i.e. “green meatballs – and it’s no wonder needled evergreens get such little respect.

   Yeah, most needled evergreens play more of a supporting role than star of the show in the peak of the growing season. But these important plants do more and offer more than their reputation conveys.

   Consider:

   1.) Most needled evergreens are some of the drought-hardiest plants around. They may not need any water once they’re established. Needles lose far less moisture in a hot summer than big-leafed plants like hydrangeas and maples.

   2.) They’re not just a green family. Needled evergreens come in versions that have blue needles, gray needles, golden needles, and two-toned variegated needles.

   3.) They come in many different forms and sizes, making them versatile in a wide range of design situations. Columnar upright junipers, for example, make excellent “sentinel” plants flanking doorways. Western arborvitae are a classic, fast-growing choice for a privacy screen. Hinoki falsecypress, weeping Alaska-cedar, dwarf cryptomeria, and numerous other dwarf conifers make superb specimens and foundation plants. A few well placed spruce or fir trees can make a heat-bill-lowering winter windbreak. And spreading junipers, Russian cypress, and prostrate Japanese plum yews are some of the best weed-choking plants for low-care groundcovers.

   4.) If you’re careful when picking sizes or stick with dwarf varieties, needled evergreens need little to no pruning. That’s especially true if you like the looser style that’s now in vogue as opposed to a neatly trimmed formal look.

   5.) Other than yews and eastern arborvitae, most needled evergreens are low on the list of plants that deer bother. Firs, junipers, spruce, pines, and cryptomeria are some of the best options for gardening in deer country.

   6.) Although needled evergreens look pretty much the same all year, that trait comes in handy after fall’s first frost when most everything else in the landscape goes brown and/or bare for five months.

   In short, needled evergreens offer the low-care, four-season look that so many gardeners say they want.

   Most nurseries carry more evergreen choices than you might think. The problem is that gardeners tend to buy what they know, and what they know is often limited by what they see everybody else growing. When it comes to needled evergreens, that boils down to those meatball yews around the house, bagworm- and deer-riddled eastern arborvitae along the border, and a diseased Colorado blue spruce in the front yard.

   No wonder so few are eager to beef up this type of planting when that’s what they know of it.

   The good news is that some of the nicest, good-looking needled evergreen choices are also some of the best performing, most pest-resistant, and least deer-prone.

   Just because they’re not as familiar doesn’t mean they’re bad choices.

   If you could use some evergreen reinforcements, here are 14 that rank high on my list:

Japanese umbrella pine (Sciadopitys verticillata)

   Let’s start with my favorite specimen tree conifer. The standout feature is the thick, almost succulent straw-like needles that are arranged umbrella-like around the stems.

   Japanese umbrella pines aren’t completely abuse-free as they don’t like alkaline soils and need water in a drought more than most conifers.

   They’re also a little harder to find than some conifers and are more expensive than most because of their slow growth habit (ultimately to about 25 feet tall and 15 feet wide). However, deer, bugs, and disease rarely bother them.

Hinoki falsecypress (Chamaecyparis obtusa)

   These come in all sorts of sizes and shapes, from slow-growing, two- to three-foot globes to 18-foot uprights. Some varieties have golden needles.

   Good, tall uprights are ‘Gracilis’ and the gold-needled ‘Crippsii.’ ‘Nana Gracilis’ and ‘Kosteri’ are good compact green uprights, while ‘Verdoni’ is an excellent gold-tinted, compact upright. ‘Torulosa’ is a compact pyramid with an interested twisted habit, and ‘Nana Lutea’ is one of the many slow-growing, compact globe forms (a golden one).

   Hinoki falsecypresses seldom run into any bug or disease troubles, they hardly ever need pruning, and they’re fairly low on the deer menu, once they get past the first few young, tender, and “curiosity” years.

Dwarf gold-thread falsecypress (Chamaecyparis pisifera)

   Dwarf gold-threads are easy to find, fairly inexpensive, and a top choice where deer are lurking.

   Varieties such as ‘Golden Mop’ and ‘Lemon Thread’ make excellent, colorful, textural, and bullet-proof landscape accents that grow five to six feet tall and slightly wider.

   The needles are soft and “shaggy,” and the golden color gives them extra “pop” in the landscape.

   Note: Standard-size types also are available that can grow upwards of 16 feet tall and 12 feet wide.

Juniper ‘Gold Cone’ (Juniperus communis)

   Another good choice for a gold-tinted accent is this compact, narrow upright. ‘Gold Cone’ grows in a tight habit with fine, gold-tipped needles to a size of about six feet tall but only three feet wide in 10 years.

   It’s another one that seldom runs into bug or disease issues and that deer don’t like.

Tall junipers

   For taller accents and use as sentinel plants in sunny spots, you’ll have a range of juniper choices.

   Native eastern red cedars (Juniper virginiana) can be used for that purpose as well as a screen planting in sunny, deer-infested areas. They can seed around a bit, though, so yank any you don’t want if/when they pop up.

   Emerald Sentinel is a denser and heavier-fruiting variety of native red cedar, while ‘Manhattan Blue’ is a blue-needled native option. Both grow to about 20 feet tall and eight feet wide.

   For something tall, skinny, and blue, options include the native uprights ‘Blue Arrow’ and ‘Taylor’ (10 feet tall by three- to four-feet wide) and the Chinese juniper varieties ‘Blue Point’ (10’ x 5’) and ‘Trautman’ (15’ x 3’-4’).

Japanese red cedar ‘Globosa Nana’ and Dragon Prince (Cryptomeria japonica)

   These two, soft, fine-needled dwarf conifers grow into naturally rounded forms that never need to be pruned. Figure on a size of three to four feet tall and four feet wide.

   They’re fairly slow-growing, drought/bug/disease/deer-resistant, and ideal for use in south- and west-facing foundation beds.

   If you’re in the market for an evergreen tree, bigger forms of cryptomeria are available in ‘Yoshino’ and ‘Kityama.’ These are tough, elegant, and grow to about 20 to 25 tall and about half as wide.

‘Green Giant’ arborvitae (Thuja plicata)

   This particular arborvitae has fast become a top-seller for good reason… it’s a type of western arborvitae that deer don’t like nearly as much as our native eastern arborvitae.

   ‘Green Giant’ grows very fast to about 25 feet tall and eight feet wide in 20 years and will keep going from there, albeit at a slower rate.

   It’s tolerant of some shade, usually grows with a single leader (making it less prone to splitting and splaying than older multi-leadered arbs), and seems to be less prone to bagworms than eastern arborvitae as well.

   If ‘Green Giant’ is too big or too fast-growing, a pair of smaller western-arborvitae varieties have come along in the last few years: ‘Junior Giant’ and Virginian, which stay in the 15- to 20-foot range with a five- to six-foot width.

Japanese plum yew ‘Fastigiata’ (Cephalotaxus harringtonia)

   For those who like the look of dark-green, flat- and soft-needled yews, here’s an alternative that the deer don’t place at the top of their menu.

   Japanese plum yews look like ordinary yews but are drastically different to a deer’s palate. ‘Fastigiate’ is a useful upright of about eight feet tall and four feet wide (shearable into a smaller size).

   Sisters are ‘Duke Gardens’ and ‘Prostrate,’ which are horizontal growers about three feet tall with a five-foot stretch.

Russian (Siberian) cypress (Microbiota decussata)

   Here’s one of the few needled evergreens that prefer to be in a slightly shadier spot – dappled light all day under tall shade trees or a spot that gets morning sun and afternoon shade.

   That preference makes Russian cypress a good choice for an evergreen groundcover in tree-canopied locations around the yard.

   Deer don’t eat them, and they’re not prone to bugs, but some people don’t look how they turn brown over winter before greening back up in spring. Figure on a size of a foot tall with a spread of five feet.

Juniper ‘Grey Owl’ (Juniperus virginiana)

   This is one of the best plants for covering a hot, sunny, poor-soil bank where it’s too steep to mow grass. ‘Grey Owl’ goes up, out, and over to cover the space in a matter of years – tall and dense enough to choke out just about all weeds.

   This plant is a U.S. native, it has stiff blue-gray needles, powdery blue little berries in fall, and is drought-tough and bullet-proof, including no issues with deer.

   These are big and fast-growing plants, though, so give them the space they want, which is a height of about four feet and a spread of six to even eight feet across.

   Japanese garden juniper ‘Nana’ is a good alternative if you need something shorter and a bit slower-growing.

Weeping Alaska-cedar (Xanthocyparis nootkatensis)

   This grayish-green upright with the gracefully arching limbs and soft needles makes a striking tall specimen, growing to about 25-by-10 feet in 20-25 years.

   Not a true cedar, Alaska-cedar is extremely cold-hardy and rarely runs into any problems. It’s way more disease-resistant than the over-used Colorado blue spruce. ‘Green Arrow’ is a particularly skinny version.

Oriental spruce (Picea orientalis)

   This is one of the best full-sized needled evergreen trees. Although a little hard to find in garden centers, Oriental spruce is more resistant to the needlecast diseases that are decimating blue spruce.

   The dense habit, sleek pyramidal form, and glossy green needles make this one of the nicest specimen or screening conifers, even without counting the reddish-purple cones. Just keep it out of wet or salty soil.

   Grows 40 to 50 feet tall and half as wide in 20-25 years.

Serbian spruce (Picea omorika)      

   Similar in size and habit to Oriental spruce, Serbian spruce has lighter green needles with white streaking, giving the tree an almost bluish cast.

   Also more disease-resistant than blue spruce, these have little purplish cones. Figure on a size of about 50-by-20-feet in 25 years.

Bosnian pine (Pinus heldreichii var. leucodermis)

   Pines in general run into a lot of bug and disease issues. Bosnian pine, I’ve found, isn’t immune but at least is less likely to run into serious problems.

   The three-inch needles are stiff and dark green, and the tree’s habit is dense and bushy. It’ll grow about 40 feet tall and 20 to 25 feet wide in 20-25 years.