‘Conifers’ will grow on readers> Dwarf varieties focus of gardening book

A GARDEN OF CONIFERS, by Robert A. Obrizok, Firefly Books Ltd., 1999 (second printing), 117 pages, paperback, $24.95.

Maine is conifer central.

With white pine and red spruce as common as dandelions, it might be easy to believe conifers are simply a prickly lot, providing a hint of color in winter’s cold palette.

How wrong that would be.

In Robert A. Obrizok’s “A Garden of Conifers,” the possibilities of adding a myriad of golds, greens and blues are nearly endless — and the book covers only a select group of conifers, the dwarf varieties.

Obrizok presents a detailed work on what you might think is a limited number of plants, but in his book alone are more than 2,000 concise descriptions of conifer cultivars, many of which would grow easily in Maine.

For most gardeners, dwarf conifers present an attractive solution to adding year-round color to the yard without turning the open spaces into woods. The dwarf varieties are very slow-growing, most maturing only after 20 or more years and reaching about one-twentieth the size of their larger species relative.

Obrizok takes a practical approach to gardening with conifers, speaking in lay terms about cultivation requirements and acknowledging that every tree and bush will grow differently in every yard no matter what the nursery tag says.

With that in mind, Obrizok launches into the heart of the book, beginning with a sampler of varieties commonly grown but encompassing a number of interesting conifers in all shapes, sizes and colors. With the next section, “Genera Descriptions,” the author offers even more detail on the different species from fir and hemlock to sequoia and larch. He even gives a pronunciation guide for the botanical names, which will be of great help in distinguishing among the cypresses, false, bald and otherwise. After discussing the species’ characteristics and requirements, Obrizok names their cultivars, all of which are described individually in the next section, “Descriptive Checklist.”

These 66 pages are a list of more than 2,000 conifer cultivars, each including a brief description and a small illustration to show the general shape of the mature plant. Most important of all are the single numbers after each paragraph: They indicate the hardiness zone for each plant. On just the first page of listings, I counted 33 varieties that could grow in Zones 3 and 4.

The book ends with a short dictionary explaining some Latin and Greek terms (did you know “echiniformis” means “in the form of a hedgehog” in both languages?) and an index of common names before giving sources for nurseries that specialize in dwarf conifers.

My only complaint about “A Garden of Conifers” is that I found myself so fascinated with the pictures that I wanted to see one of each cultivar just to compare. After looking at page after page of a few dozen conifers, I found myself longing for Chamaecyparis obtusa `Nana Gracilis,’ a false cypress that looks like a giant sea sponge but in a rich green shade. Or maybe Picea pungens `Pendula,’ a weeping Colorado spruce in a cool blue-gray hue. Or perhaps Pinus mugo `Mops Verkade’s Witches’-broom,’ a mugo pine that is bun-shaped and, if you believe the looks of the 10-year-old specimen, is bun-sized.

This book makes me think I could start small and someday, too, have a garden of conifers.

Janine Pineo is a copy editor and gardening columnist at the NEWS.