Hi Will,

Nice selection of conifers. Bob has quality stock.

Can't tell if the Picea orientalis 'Nutans' is laying down or not...Needs to be staked for height especially if it is a limb graft.

I see your using the stainless steel tags. Good choice. I went to those several years ago. Virtually indestructible.

Dave

hey dude..

when are you planning to move.. based on the stock you already own????

i figure you have 3 acres worth.. on your 1/2 acre ...

you better think out your buying sprees.. or you will be doing what blue does... getting rid of the carp plants ...

ken

Yes: Exciting collection but many are soon going to be into the lawn, the walks or each other as currently placed.

I have trouble finding grafted conifers at garden centers here which aren't terribly rootbound - if I were you I would inspect for this and correct as needed when planting - or you may have some nice well-along plants falling over or even being pinched off by girdling roots.

This is a general problem and not limited to grafted conifers. Finding camellias from the two major California sources that dominate the local supply that aren't wobbling on tightly knotted roots systems - even in large tubbed sizes costing hundreds of dollars - is pretty much impossible. (Then there is the problem of viral marbling...).

lol Ken... I do have a bunch of 'large and irregular' plants that frankly I am at a loss of where to put them(yet) but for the most part I have a lot of super mini's, mini's and dwarves planted in the ground. I probably have less then 30 trees that are 'full size' types and most of those have at least 6-7' around them to grow or have 'temp' plants near them that will be gone as you said.

I'm also 'OK' with plants growing into eachother as long as it's not too bad. For the most part I haven't planted conifers that will be a total mess in five years or less.

That said, I'm having a really hard time placing:

Picea abies 'Inversa'
Picea abies 'Aarburg'
Picea abies 'Virgata'
Cedrus deodara 'Albospica'
Picea jeznoensis var. Hondeonsis
and a handful of others...

I might 'donate' them at some point to friends/families/neighbors/forum members?

I do have a mess but it's a good mess. I have 230 Japanese maples to deal with also, about 80 in the ground and 150 in pots. Given our environment is perfect for them and I appreciate them as much as I do conifers, there's going to be some crowding for sure.

bboy, the lawn is expendable. I imagine I'll keep eating it as the years go on. The center island in particular is getting an expansion this spring. I'm going to match it to the circular pattern of my mowing so it's easy and has some natural curves as well.

In the backyard and along paths I've tried to keep the larger dwarves in the middle and back and the mini's, small dwarves near the path.

If they curl over into the path like the image that I've linked that will be OK too, though in the photo their path is too small!

Here is a link that might be useful:

Well done Will, that's what plant collecting is all about, too many plants and too little space. Don't forget you can always selectively prune some of the faster growing varieties, if you do this from the start they can be kept in check for many years without spoiling their natural appearance

Will...looks like you have been one busy boy!
The walkway looks great, as do your conifer beds.
Is that a new deck with benches too?

Barbara

Fire,

Absolutely stunning!! Love the beds, walks, and of course, the conifers - you're doing an amazing job.

Your last post on the visit to Coenosium inspired me to no end, and I've been feverishly putting together my wish list. I spoke with Dianne at Coenosium yesterday for quite a while, getting all kinds of advice. Late, I sent her "The List" - can't wait to get some of them in!! Wonderful people by the way, very pleasant.

If you're running out of space you can send anything you don't have room for my way!! I have 22 acres to fill up and am just getting started, as they say. I do have about 220 Japanese Maples, but am only up to 20 conifers! :-)

Regards,

K4

Hi Will.Glad to hear at least someone is able to work the ground.Ours has been wet/soggy /frozen all autumn and early winter,and it's raining again.You're showing us some great plants here.Hope you leave enough room to plant some of your maples between the conifers! T.

Very busy work indeed. I've used all 700 rocks. The south side of my house has about a 25 foot wide side yard and is about 80 feet long. There is a stand of au natural planted trees, some douglas firs and maybe a birch or two. There is a signifigant slope down towards the trees from the house, maybe 10-15 degrees. Right now I have a dozen japanese maples and a few other shade loving plants(hydrangea, rhodedenrons, etc) at the bottom of the hill, the top is(big surprise!) another large conifer bed. I am in the process of making two retaining walls on either side for a level path. Once that's mostly done I'll post some images of that as well. Grueling work but I love the progress and love doing it all by hand.

I plan on sticking a bunch of shade-tolerant conifers in between the maples and the path, tsuga, chamaecyparis and a few picea pungen. I need more rocks amazingly, in the end it's going to take some 2000 total to do all the paths, the retaining wall and the area around the waterfall/stream/pond.

I appreciate all the compliments, I am new to all this, so it helps continue with some confidence and also has helped me with a lot of ideas. Dave's(dcsteg) conifer design was influencial as was Coenosiums and others listed here.

Barbara, the deck and benches were pre-existing though I plan on giving them a new coat of varnish.

K4, I'll keep you in mind. Have a spot for a plant like picea abies 'Inversa'? I guess they get huge(wide and tall).

Will

Thanks Will. Yes, like I said I have 22 acres so I can handle HUGE stuff. Already have enormous Oaks and other hardwoods and have newly cleared areas just begging for some conifers! :-)

Firefighter,

Your garden looks great. I wish my garden around my house would look as nice as yours and would have all these beautiful dwarf conifers. I am trying to relate what I have read in another posting about the "smaller" plants at Stanley&Sons to your pictures of conifers from Coenosium.

I looked at the Coenosium Gardens website for several plants but somehow missed a description of size. Would you please tell me what the standard $30 per plant of the web site buys. For example, one of your very nice pictures shows a potted Picea abies 'Dumpy'. Did you get that for $30, or for which price?

Thanks!
Bernd

Heya Bernd,

As far as I know Coenosiums only offers two mail order sizes, 5 inch pot and gallon pot. All of the images I posted were either 5" pot or gallon sized pot *except* the huge Chief Joseph which are special 3 or 5 gallon sized and cost $150. All of the other images from Coenosiums are accurate representation of their normal 5" and gallon pot sized stock. Some of their cultivars aren't as old as others(some of their specimens are just huge for gallon sized plants), but generally the size of Coenosiums stock meets or exceeds everything I've seen online. The prices are all posted on their online catalog which has fantastic high rez images of more mature plants and descriptions as well.

Stanley and Sons offers great plants as well but my general experience is that the plants are younger then Coenosiums. All of the plants listed under Coenosiums were purchased in the last month or two and at prices listed on their site. If you're hesistant about ordering still, just order 2-3 plants and if you're satisfied, try some more. I doubt you'll regret it.

I'd like someday to make a 'review' post from my now considerable experience buying conifers online. Over the last 12 months I've bought over 1,000 conifers from about 15 different sources, so I have some good experience that might benefit others making similar purchases.

Bernd,

Let me slip in a little tidbit here.

The "size" is not the thing, its the age of the graft. Stanley is a wholesale nursery, and their main business is selling liners and newly grafted plants to other nurseries. These grafts are usually no more than a year old. The other nurseries pot the liners up and grow the plants larger for eventual retail sales. Stanley sells small quantities of these newly grafted trees to collectors as a favor to enthusiasts. But its not their main business.

Coenosium sells 3 or 4 year old grafts. That's why they're larger and more expensive. The benefit of an older graft is the stability and survivability of the plant - its going to be much more likely to succeed than a new graft. Rather than a "new-born", you're getting a "toddler" who's had his shots already. :-)

When I talked to Dianne at Coenosium, she told me that Bob actualy does a lot of conifer grafting for Stanley, and in fact he was having lunch with Mr. Stanley at the moment! So Stanley sells good stuff, but you're buying plants that normally would not be seen in the retail trade, and you're buying from an operation designed to produce many many thousands of plants a year. Bob and Dianne run Coenosium as a hobby business (Bob is a Science teacher), so when you buy from him you're getting plants that are grown by an enthusiast who does it because he LOVES IT! A lot of extra time and attention goes into plants from a grower like that. Its worth the price, IMHO.

I'm placing a nice sized order with Coenosium, so I'll soon find out first hand and will post some pics. I also plan on ordering some plants that are lower down on my "Wish List" from Stanley, because I can wait for them to get larger, and I can get more varieties for the same dollar. But all my top pics will come from places like Coenosium or Greers. I want older grafts.

Regards,

K4

Fire,

Your compendium of on-line conifer sources and the experience with each would be a huge blessing. It will help newbies like me avoid the torturous task of trial-and-error ordering. I went through that last year with the Japanese Maples, placing orders with just about every on-line retailer out there! If I can avoid a repeat of that, I would be in heaven!

Thanks,

K4

You've done very good work on that garden.

I'll second Bboy's remark about cultivated conifers tending to be root bound. At least three reasons: (1) grafted plants are grafted onto neglected seedlings that sat around in band pots for two or three years and (2) the slow growth that makes them desireable also means that sit in the same one gallon pot for too long. (3) cultivated conifers are a specialty item (often mail order) and with larger containers comes a lot of additional shipping cost which less people want to pay for.

RE: "Over the last 12 months I've bought over 1,000 conifers from about 15 different sources, so I have some good experience that might benefit others making similar purchases."

Yikes! at between 20 and 50 bucks a pop, I'm guessing a $35,000 garden (conservatively). You've definitely earned your way onto a few nursery owner's Christmas card lists! But great collection. Good work.

I have grossly overspent on conifers and japanese maples during my first year+ of gardening addiction. I have pretty bad OCD(obsessive-compulsive-disorder) which manifests itself mostly in hobbies. When I get into a hobby I go about it at a furious pace and relentless effort. I am also blessed to have a nice chunk of property(at least relative to my suburban location), a great climate for gardening and a fantastic job that offers more 'daylight' hours then most typical 9 to 5s'.

I also live quite frugally apart from my conifer purchases. I'd much rather save $20 for another new conifer then go see a movie I might not enjoy anyway. I have a pretty modest salary, but I've spent around $13,000 on conifers, maples and other gardening/landscaping material. I'm a single guy with an old beater car, I don't live like most folk.

I've bought a lot of conifers from local nurseries. There were a couple that had liquidation or 'late summer' sales and I found some amazing deals on conifers of all sizes. One store had a huge selection of mini chamaecyparis and cryptomeria that were all 50% off(about $5 each). Unfortunately I also made the mistake of planting them without proper labeling, so I have dozens of plants without cultivar names.

At the same nursery, during the harsh economic times, they basically liquidated their larger older stock as well, for example I was able to get a 6' tall picea pungens 'Bakeri' for $30 and a 10' tall(though thinly branched) cedrus deodara 'aurea' for the same price. I'm a bargain hunter like most people but the reality is usually you get what you pay for. Coenosiums is great in that they offer very small miniatures rarely seen anywhere else(online or otherwise) and I am blessed to have them within an hours driving range so I can visit and spend all my money there year round.

Other sources I have ordered from include Bloom River, Forest Farms, Cedric Murray(bonsai Bob), Greer Gardens, Girards Nursery, two other ebay sellers not currently offering conifers, Coenosiums, Stanley & Sons, Porterhowse and a few others that escape me at the moment. I haven't really been disappointed with any seller and all seem to have pros and cons.

I've run into some tangled roots from potted plants but I've learned to gently tease the ones that can be easily fixed, and prune and slice into the ones that are heavily tangled. So far I've had a very low failure rate. Granted only one season and over half the conifers I've bought are recently planted, I think I've lost about 10 conifers and 20 Japanese maples out of several hundred planted.

K4, I think I've ordered from the same retailer Japanese maple sellers haha!, Cedric Murray, House of Maples, Eastfork nurseries, etc.

How could any conifer enthusiast ever go without some Japanese maples planted here and there?

Hi Firefighter, Hi K4,

Thanks for your reply explaining the size difference. This seems to be like buying from Greer Gardens, which I did for many years on and off, only a few at a time. Coenosiums has many more dwarf conifers to offer, that's why I am interested, will probably do 2 or 3 to try out. There might still be some more space on my 1/2 acre lot.

I need to add that these dwarf conifers at Coenosiums and Stanley were grafted and now are growing in zone 7 I believe, and we here in zone 5 had a few days ago -12 dgrs.F at night, luckily with 1 ft snow. Should possibly this temperature difference also be a factor in draft survivability of plants from zone 7 here in zone 5?

Firefighter, I have to live without Japanese maples. They always died in my climate. Some years we had a full week of -20 F, and Japanese maples do not seem to like that. Only Acer Bloodgood seems to survive in some places, probably a hardier strain or a better micro climate.

Thanks for your help!
Bernd

Firefighter, another nursery out your way you may want to look at - Tiny Treasures Nursery. Their selection isn't large, but they have some neat plants and other than conifers as well. Google them for the website.
Marshall

OCD : It only happens twice a year...but it lasts six months each time ! T.

Fire,

Yep! We've been hitting the same people on the Maples! My favorite, tho, is Topiary Gardens. She can now send plants to West Coast, so you may want to give her a try. Great bang for the buck!

And you're right - JMs and Conifers go together like bread and butter. Perfect for each other!

Bernd,

Try some Acer Japonicum varieties. They are hardier than the Palmatums. Incredible fall colors!

It is an amazing collection you are building! Your tags look excellent, I am wondering what you used to make the labels on them? I have others talk about using P-Touch, but yours look as if they may have made on the computer?

Looks like he might be using clear laserjet mail labels

I'll check out Topiary Gardens for sure, a brief glance at their website was intriguing. Tiny treasure nursery as well.

I am using the lables Ken recommended, although I think I chose a larger size(1"). The lable maker is:

Brother P-Touch model PT-2700. It does all kinds of neat things like bold text, underlined, different size and type fonts, etc.

I bought it through buy.com during their thanksgiving blowouts, it was something like $15.

Fire,

Just like Coenosium, Topiary sells well established plants raised with the care of a collector. I've included some pics of plants I ordered from Diana for you. One nice touch is that she puts the grafting date on the plant tag, and you can clearly see the tag and date on some of these pics if you enlarge the photo. Diana does not fertilize her plants as a general rule, so her plants are not "pushed", and her packing is excellent. She gets my top pick for Mail Order, with Eastfork and Greers close behind. Greers will ship huge plants, which few others will do. {{gwi:638979}}Japanese Maple Order

Enjoy

K4

Will, Your yard looks great. I love the paths. It looks like you're making quick work of filling it up with nice conifers too. It should be even more impressive in the future as things start to grow at different rates and start to establish different heights and blend together. I'm sure you already have a vision of this in your head. Fun stuff isn't it. I'm completely envious of your direct access to Coenosium, it's one of my favorites too. Thanks for sharing the photos.

Dan

Very nice pictures indeed Will!
When it come's to some names on these labels, I have to made some comments:
You mentioned: Pinus mugo 'Jacobsen', yhis must be Pinus mugo Jakobsen.
I have Swedish friend who know Mr. Arne Vagn Jakobsen and he told them to spread around that Jakobsen must be written with a K instead of a C.
Mr. Jakobsen has found several other plants, for instance Larix kaempferi 'Jakobsen Pyramid'

There's also written Pinus parviflora 'Pentaphylla Azuma'
This is also wrongly spelled and must be Pinus parviflora 'Azuma-goyo'
In the past there was this variety pentaphylla but this name may not be used as a cultivar name.

Thanks for the maple images, amazingly with some 230 cultivars in my database I don't have most of those listed! I'll buy a few maples from Topiary Gardens for sure. The graft listed date feature is SUPURB, I wish conifer growers did that. I'd love to be able to lable exactly how old some of my plants are.

coniferjoy, thanks for the compliment and the corrections! I always welcome advice, name changes, critisism, etc. as I am just a new conifer 'fish' and learning a lot as I go. The great thing about these lables and plant markers is that I have been able to effortlessly remove lables that are misspelled and make new ones for pennies on the dollar.

I am anxiously awaiting spring so I can watch all these little guys start going. Indeed, I have visions of having well meshed vistas of conifers of all shapes, sizes, colors and textures. Walking around Coenosiums gives an amazing perspective on how impressive a mixed conifer garden really is.

These three images just put me at a loss of words. Shot this fall at Coenosiums.

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Thanks for sharing. It will be 7 weeks or more before I can do any planting. Seeing your work (fun) helps get one through. Your garden will be great. The backdrop of the trees really will frame your garden beautifully.
Gary