Recommend evergreen for woodland

[spandit]

My fledgling woodland is doing well but mostly deciduous so looks pretty sparse and sad in the winter. I have a few Scots pine and holly planted, none of which are doing that well but wondered what evergreen species I could plant to give it some structure/cover at this time of year?

[Squaredy]

Maybe Coastal Redwood.  Might not be that amazing in your lifetime, but eventually may produce world beating specimens (as would Douglas Fir of course).  And fantastic timber, light strong and durable, and maybe create yourself a setting for future Star Wars filming...

[scbk]

How many trees are you talking about planting, a few, or a few thousand.

I had a few bags of mixed self seeded conifers here, kept trying to find new places to put them so they could keep on growing.

May or may not have rehomed some on a moonlit night to some waste ground.

 

There was some old boys I met a while ago who had been doing "guerrilla gardening" for years, planting trees on any spare land round their village.

[Stere]

 

 

Always thought it would be nice to guerilla garden  edible stuff like plums or  apple trees etc on waste ground etc.

 

 

 

 

[roys]

I can supply you a few acres of rhododendrons, free of charge, mature, just come and pick your own and bring a couple of artics, evergreen, great firewood, come on you know you want to, I will even through in lunch for you😀

[spandit]

2 minutes ago, roys said:

I can supply you a few acres of rhododendrons, free of charge, mature, just come and pick your own and bring a couple of artics, evergreen, great firewood, come on you know you want to, I will even through in lunch for you😀

Wow! What an incredibly generous offer. I'm also after some good ground cover plants. Do you have any Japanese knotweed going spare? 😁

[spandit]

11 hours ago, scbk said:

How many trees are you talking about planting, a few, or a few thousand.

I had a few bags of mixed self seeded conifers here, kept trying to find new places to put them so they could keep on growing.

May or may not have rehomed some on a moonlit night to some waste ground.

 

There was some old boys I met a while ago who had been doing "guerrilla gardening" for years, planting trees on any spare land round their village.

I'm only talking a handful, under 100

[Paul in the woods]

Choice will depend on what your objectives are. I would stick with the Scots pine as they can be slow to establish but seem to grow well after a few years. In my 30 year old woodland the Scots are the tallest trees. They are good for wildlife and they don't shade out the ground that much. (Down side the squirrels love living in them).

 

This time of year also shows the benefit of the maligned ivy as that provides a large amount of evergreen cover throughout the woodland which is a great habitat.

 

If you not after huge trees something like bay laurel could be useful. I've been surprised by the growth of it and it can grow into a decent sized small tree. The flowers also seem to be loved by wildlife. It will need protecting from deer though as they seem to love it.

 

 

[lux]

It's really common in these parts. It self seeds with extraordinary vigour, even in places where there is no evidence of local hemlock trees.

There is a lovely mature (ie, over 100ft tall) DF stand near to us with a complete carpet of 20ft hemlock underneath if. It's very pretty.

Why did Hemlock drop in value / demand? There’s acres of big hemlock next to my place. Told it will never be harvested as no value
I’m happy it’s staying. My dogs love the hemlock plantation [emoji106]

[spandit]

Well I've ordered hemlock, western red cedar and holm oak. I also bought some box trees locally which I'll leave to grow into standards. I have some bay laurel that might have put out some seedlings so I can transplant that too

[Will C]

Watch the home oak doesn’t take over, it spreads like wild fire over here