EDDIE SEAGLE: Evergreen shrubs for knot gardens

Published 8:18 am Wednesday, July 30, 2025

“In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.” Franklin D. Roosevelt. “Liberty is the breath of life to nations.” George Bernard Shaw. “Give me liberty or give me death!” Patrick Henry. “Those who won our independence believed liberty to be the secret of happiness.” Louis D. Brandeis. “Liberty, once tasted, is an incurable addiction.” Richelle E. Goodrich. “Where liberty dwells, there is my country.” Benjamin Franklin. “America, to me, is freedom.” Willie Nelson. “America is hope. It is compassion. It is excellence. It is valor.” Paul Tsongas. “Summer afternoon—to me, those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.” Henry James. “The summer night is like a perfection of thought.” Wallace Stevens.

Did you return from a European tour of chateau gardens, obsessed with formal knot gardens? Have you spied lovely herb gardens outlined by clean, clipped rows of boxwoods? Or are you obsessed with your friend’s gorgeous cottage garden, with beautiful, billowing blooms contained by short, neatly trimmed living fences? No matter where you found the inspiration, creating a knot garden makes a lovely garden addition.

The term knot garden refers to a type of garden design featuring intricate patterns created using low-growing plants. Originating in England and popular during the medieval and Elizabethan era, knot gardens were designed to segment different foods and herbs in the kitchen garden. The plants’ arrangement resembles interwoven knots or geometric shapes, giving the garden a formal and structured appearance. Eventually, low-growing shrubs were incorporated to create a more permanent look. And, as the popularity of knot gardens grew, their designs and uses also morphed, with gardeners adding their favorite flowers, elaborate topiaries, fountains, sculptures, and more into the space.

Whether you want an elaborate, formal knot garden reminiscent of Versailles or crave clean, geometric lines for a sophisticated, modern garden space, knot gardens provide endless options. Before you begin digging the first hole, however, assess your space. Measure the area where you plan to plant, then spend some time designing the garden on graph paper or using an online program. A physical design will help you plan the borders and twists and turns of your knot garden, as well as aid you in planning plant placement.

Once you’ve finalized your design, consider these evergreens for creating your knot garden structure: Boxwood Better Boxwood® Renaissance™ – the smallest in the blight-resistant collection, offers rich green, year-round foliage with a compact 1-2 foot mature size, ideal for formal gardens, borders, and containers in USDA Zones 5-9. Also, Holly Mini Touch™ – this adorable, compact holly forms a dense mound of tiny leaves, making it a low-maintenance, year-round evergreen solution perfect for knot gardens, containers, and various landscape designs as a boxwood alternative, reaching 2 feet tall and wide in USDA Zones 6-9.

Rhododendron Bloombux® Blush – meet the game-changing, blush-pink flowering, boxwood alternative! Use it in knot gardens to create a low hedge. The shrub produces beautiful pink flowers each spring that attract pollinators. Reaches 2 feet tall and wide. USDA Zone 5b-9. And, Boxwood Littleleaf Wintergreen™ – this attractive and exceptionally hardy broadleaf evergreen boxwood features delicate, bright-green foliage that shifts to copper-green in winter, making it an excellent choice for low hedges or knot gardens, growing 2 feet tall and 2-3 feet wide in USDA Zones 4-9.

Holly GEM BOX® Inkberry – this North American native evergreen shrub offers a tidy, boxwood-like appearance with attractive red-tipped new foliage, rarely needing trimming but responding well to shaping, while its flowers support pollinators and berries feed wildlife when a Squeeze Box® male holly is present, growing 2-3 feet tall and wide in USDA Zones 5-9. And, Japanese Pittosporum Wheeler’s Dwarf – this dwarf, rounded evergreen shrub, prized for its dense, glossy foliage and occasional orange blossom-scented flowers, is a low-maintenance choice perfect for borders, groundcover, or containers, growing 2-3 feet tall and 4-5 feet wide in USDA Zones 8-11.

Are you ready to add excellent evergreen color and interest to your garden? Whether you choose evergreen shrubs for foundation plants, hedges, living privacy fences, or knot gardens, you’ll love the four seasons of interest evergreens add to your garden.

This fact sheet is provided as an education/inspirational service of the National Garden Bureau (https://ngb.org/evergreen-shrubs-foundation-hedges-privacy-knot-gardens/).

“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in Me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as You are in Me and I am in You. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that You have sent me.” John 17:20-21. “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’ “ Matthew 25:21. “Do not merely listen to the Word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what It says.” James 1:22. “I in them and You in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that You sent Me and have loved them even as You have loved Me.” John 17:23.

Eddie Seagle is a Sustainability Verifier, Golf Environment Organization (Scotland), Agronomist and Horticulturalist, CSI: Seagle (Consulting Services International) LLC, Professor Emeritus and Honorary Alumnus (Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College), Distinguished Professor for Teaching and Learning (University System of Georgia) and Short Term Missionary (Heritage Church, Moultrie). Direct inquiries to csi_seagle@yahoo.com.