The trouble with conifers is that close up, unless you're an aficionado of the things (in which case, get a life, dude!) they really do all look horribly similar, except the larch, Larix decidua, which does its best to pretend it isn't a conifer and dumps its leaves for the winter, only to give away its true nature by hanging on to some little cones. Fooling no-one, Larix decidua!
Right, that's nailed one out of twelve. Eleven to go...
Thuja occidentalis 'Rheingold' acts in a suitably Ronseal fashion in having yellowish foliage, while Juniperus x pfitzeriana 'Pzitzeriana Aurea' sounds like it should do, but doesn't and for something with such a convoluted name, it has unremarkable foliage in an uninspiring mid-green. I'm going to struggle to differentiate between that and Thuja placata when they've got numbers not names beside them.
Yew (Taxus baccata) has nice deep-green foliage and little red berries and the main hazard with this one, apart from it being poisonous, is remembering if it's two 'Cs' or two 'Ts', if whoever is marking isn't taking prisoners on spelling this week. There are a handful with distinctive cones: Pinus radiata is asymmetrical while paradoxically, Sequoiadendron giganteum actually has fairly small cones. Cedrus deodara's cones look like they ought to be longer, but have been concertina-ed down on themselves - and they should smell cedary. Abies koreana has tiny little green cones, more like little berries and Pinus sylvestris has typical 'pine cone' cones, 'cause it's the native Scots Pine.
And I ought to recognise the Juniperus scopulorum 'Skyrocket' after taking dozens of cuttings of the perishing thing a few weeks ago.
Finally, there's x Cuprocyparis Leylandii, the one you accessorise with a chainsaw...
Sorted!
By the way, Blogger doesn't seem to be letting me put new photos on, so apologies for the lack of illustrations, though with conifers all looking so mind-bogglingly similar...!
