Evergreen garden design and ideas
Evergreen garden design means building a garden round plants that keep their leaves all winter: clipped shapes, hedges and evergreen shrubs that hold its outline in every season, with flowers filling the gaps between them.
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Real evergreen garden ideas
Evergreen landscaping ideas from real gardens redesigned with the app, from a fence corner to a whole lawn reshaped. Tap Before to see how each started, or Get this garden to try the look on yours.
Evergreen border ideas
Evergreen garden borders along a lawn, a fence or a gravel path, with pittosporum, box balls and phormium for shape all year. 5 gardens
A fence corner planted with pittosporum, euphorbia, bergenia and black mondo grass
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Clipped evergreen balls and a phormium under a tall tree beside a patio
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Box balls and a bird bath beside an oval lawn and block paving
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Bare soil and new seed behind a new fence, turned into a striped lawn with a deep border along the back
Get this garden →Evergreen landscaping ideas
Clipped box, cloud pruned shrubs and evergreen hedging that hold a garden together all year, round paths, patios and lawns. 7 gardens
Cloud pruned pine and box hedging under a pergola, with a lawn beyond
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Clipped balls and a stone path
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Paths and clipped evergreens by the house
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Cloud pruned shrubs and lavender
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A long town garden with a straight stone path between clipped box balls and lavender
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Curved patio with clipped evergreens
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Box squares round a paved centre
Get this garden →Evergreen front garden ideas
Evergreen shrubs for a front garden: rounded shapes along a bare strip below a wall, and heucheras and ferns round a bird bath. 2 gardens
A bare strip below a white wall planted with evergreen shrubs and pink flowers
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A new build's front bed of grey chippings, filled with hostas, ferns, salvias and a bird bath
Get this garden →How to design an evergreen garden
The few ideas behind the gardens above, and how to plan an evergreen garden of your own from them.
What makes an evergreen garden
The idea is a frame that never goes away. Plants that keep their leaves give the garden its outline in every season, and flowering plants fill the gaps between them, so the garden changes through the year while its shape stays put.
Repeat a few shapes
Pick two or three shrubs and repeat them: a clipped ball every metre or so along a border, a pair of cones by a path, a low hedge round a bed. Repetition is what makes them look designed rather than dotted about.
Evergreen borders
Put taller shrubs like yew or holly at the back to hide the fence, rounded shapes in the middle, and low leaves that last the winter, like bergenia and sedge, along the front edge, where they cover the soil in winter. Then plant flowers through them for colour in summer.
Small and front gardens
In a small or front garden, evergreens do most of the work, because every plant is on show all year. Choose shrubs that stay compact, like Ilex crenata, pittosporum and hebe, and keep the flowering plants to a few repeated ones.
See it on your own garden first
Garden Design App designs your garden from a photo. It reads a picture of your garden, keeps the house, the fences and the trees where they are, and redesigns it with evergreen structure and plants you could genuinely grow.
From an idea to a plan you can plant
When one of the designs clicks, the Pro and Max plans turn it into a planting plan: every plant named, how big each grows and where each goes, with a month by month flowering calendar so the garden has something in flower from spring to autumn.
12 evergreen plants for borders
Evergreens that keep a border's shape through winter, from tall screens at the back to low leaves for the front edge.
- Yew
- Holly
- Ilex crenata
- Pittosporum
- Viburnum tinus
- Osmanthus
- Euphorbia
- Bergenia
- Hellebores
- Japanese sedge
- Black mondo grass
- Hart's tongue fern
More evergreen garden ideas
Clipped balls and cypresses round a stone fountain give one of our formal garden ideas the same shape all year.
A path of grey slabs between deep planting is among our modern garden ideas.
Cloud pruned shrubs, moss and stone shape the gardens on our Japanese garden design page.
Evergreen garden design questions
What are some ideas for evergreen landscaping?
Use evergreens as the frame and flowers as the fill: clipped balls or cones repeated along a border, a hedge or a few columns of yew at the back, and low evergreens like bergenia and sedge at the front edge, with flowering plants between them.
What are some good evergreen garden plants?
For shape, yew, holly, Ilex crenata and pittosporum; for flowers in winter, Viburnum tinus and hellebores; for the front of a border, bergenia, Japanese sedge and black mondo grass. Euphorbia adds lime green heads in spring.
Will an evergreen garden look the same all year?
Its shape will. The evergreens hold the outline through winter, and the flowering plants between them change with the seasons, so the garden looks full in summer and still looks planted in January.
Can I have an evergreen front garden?
Yes. Evergreen shrubs such as Viburnum tinus, pittosporum and clipped balls keep the front of a house looking planted all year, with a few flowering plants in front of them for summer colour.
Can I see an evergreen garden on my own garden?
Yes. Add a photo of your garden, choose the Evergreen structure style, and see it redesigned in about a minute. Your house, fences and trees stay.
Are the plants real, and can I buy them?
Yes. With the Pro and Max plans every design names its plants: garden centre favourites and RHS Award of Garden Merit winners, chosen by a professional gardener, with how big each grows and where each goes.
Is it free?
Your first 3 designs are free, with no card needed. The Pro plan is £29 and the Max plan is £49, paid once, with nothing to cancel.
Can I try more than one evergreen garden idea?
Yes. Make different designs and compare them on your own garden. Your first 3 are free, and Pro, one payment of £29, gives you 20 designs over 14 days, two at a time, so you can see several looks side by side.
Why does my redesign look like high summer?
We show your garden at its peak, in full flower, so you can see how full it can look. It is an artist's impression: your real garden changes through the seasons. Every paid design comes with a flowering calendar, so you know what flowers each month, and evergreen shapes help it look good in winter.
Keep your garden green in winter.
Try any of these evergreen garden ideas on your own garden in about a minute. Your first 3 designs are free.
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