Using large bushes as evergreen-trees

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Trimming of landscape bushes to create evergreen-trees gives a manicured look to any landscape. This takes time and requires some educated effort and vision. A whole lot of trees fall under the category of evergreen-trees Italian Cypress could be considered an evergreen. They grow skinny and tall, and can be used as accents in a Tuscany style landscape or they can be used as a screen.

Some evergreens are bushes that can be grown up to be trees. The photenia tree (below) is a bush that has had one limb selected to grow up a stick until it was tall enough to let the plant grow on top of the trunk. Commonly called a standard tree or patio tree, these can also be shaped as a multi-trunk tree.

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SEE PATIO TREES

The multi-trunk version of this starts as a way to clean up a large bush near the ground. You must remember that once the lower branches have been trimmed, they likely will not grow any more leaves in that part of the plant.
This kind of tree will need to be pruned just like the bush does in order to keep a nice globe shape. Probably won't need to be topped since the photenia only grows to 12 feet or so. This type of tree can be created out most any evergreen shrub. The japanese privot is another common variety that these are grown out of. The privot tree in the photo below is about 12 years old and about 18 feet tall. This is a pretty natural shape for this type of tree.

The southern live oak tree shown here is a very durable tree. It can take the desert heat and also withstand severe cold. These can be pruned to a tight shape for a more ornamental look. The new growth is light green which gives it a fresh look in spring.

Blue atlas cedar, this evergreen-tree is a great for contrast in the landscape design, it has an informal wild sort of shape which is attractive. These trees grow slow but they do get huge eventually. So plan ahead and give them plenty of space. Either that or simply remove the specimine before it gets too large, and replace it with another young tree.

The same goes for the deodar cedar shown below.  I love these for the fern like needles. The new growth is light green, almost velvet like, and the fullness of the branches gives the tree a healthy powerful presence in the landscape, this is especially true in the springtime. These trees are almost blue during the spring growth period.

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