Peter Dowdall: Evergreens we love to grow in our gardens

The blue spruce brings sparkle to winter gardens. File picture

I’d be a rich man if I had a euro for every time I visited a private garden and the owner pointed out to me, a conifer standing four metres high or more and they told me that “I bought this 30 years ago and they told me that it was a dwarf conifer!”

There was a time that seemingly, nearly every single garden in Ireland was planted with “dwarf conifers”, the ubiquitous heather bed, a rockery and some hydrangeas scattered about the place.