Whether it’s small garden landscapes or all the property around your home, your landscape is like an art gallery of nature. And like a well-curated gallery, your garden benefits from choosing a mix of plants, shrubs and trees that combine to give your landscape it’s unique “personality” and appeal.
Evergreen trees are a great addition to any landscape because they offer year-round greenery. By themselves, evergreens, including spruce trees, pine trees and fir trees, among others, offer a great variety of sizes, from the 20m tall Norway spruce to the 1m tall Mugo pine shrub; and colours, including the Colorado blue spruce and the white fir. Here are our favourite types of pine trees for landscaping.
Popular Types of Pine Trees for Landscaping
Pine trees are probably what most of us think of when we think of evergreens. They also offer as much variety for your landscape as any other type of evergreen and are popular choices for tree planting by professional landscapers.
Scotch Pine
Also known as the Scottish or Scots pine, it’s one of the more popular species for Christmas trees. In your yard, it adds an interesting splash of blue-green foliage to the mix. Grows to 20 m.
Mugo Pine
Going quickly to the other end of the height scale, the slow-growing dwarf mugo pine is a favourite addition to flower gardens because it provides a hardy frame and backdrop for your blooms.
Eastern White Pine
If there’s a “rockstar” of pine trees, at least in Toronto, the GTA and Southern Ontario, the eastern white pine is it! In addition to being the tallest tree species in eastern Canada at 25 m, it’s also the official tree of Ontario. The eastern white pine is a fast-growing variety, happy in full sun and its height offers lots of shade.
Jack Pine
If you like the idea of having parts of your landscape that are famous and/or historic, check out the Jack Pine. Even if it doesn’t look familiar at first, you’ve seen it before. It’s the foreground subject of one of the most famous paintings by a Canadian: “The Jack Pine”, painted by Group of Seven artist, Tom Thompson.
To learn more about landscaping your yard, check out our article “The Benefits of Landscaping for Your Home”.
