Specimen plants are a great way to accent a landscape. If you are looking for color or an evergreen for year round foliage, specimen plants are great options.

Here are a few ideas that are unique and create a focal point in any garden bed. 

Japanese Maple Screen

This is a new and creative way to add a beautiful Japanese Maple in a location it normally isn’t planted. A vertical plant screen takes up very little space and fills a blank wall with lovely red foliage.

With minor annual pruning, it can be kept to its original size forever. 

Screens are also available with Tri-color Beech, Green Japanese Maple and Shacler Laceleaf Maples. Sizes range from 5 ft tall to 7 ft long to 5 ft tall to 5 ft long. The Laceleaf Screen is available in 3 ft tall to 7 ft long size.

Creeping Blue Spruce

Picea pungens ‘Glauca Procumbens’

This spreading, undulating groundcover produces a striking effect when planted to drape over a rock wall or slope. It grows one to two foot high and spreads six to eight feet wide. The attractive blue form makes an excellent alternative to ground-covering junipers. Plant in full sun. 

Weeping Alaskan Cedar

Chamaecyparis nootkatensis ‘Pendula’

A slender, pyramidal and delicate weeping tree with pendulous branches produces a striking effect in the landscape. Plant in full sun to part shade. It grows 15 to 20 feet tall and 8 to 12 feet wide.

Dwarf Hinoki Falsecypress

Chamaecyparis obtusa ‘Nana Gracilis’

Dwarf Hinoki Falsecypress is a dense multi-stemmed evergreen shrub with a distinctive and refined pyramidal form.  Its shell-shaped sprays give it a relatively fine texture with almost ferny, delicate foliage that sets it apart from other landscape plants. It’s ideal for detail uses. Plant in full sun to part shade.  It grows three to six feet tall and spreads two to four feet.