With the onset of hot weather we find the mind turns to shade.

Evergreen trees hold their leaves for more than one season but fail to appeal to the popular mind. Yet in the right spot they can be magnificent.

The carob tree is found in Tanunda, South Australia.

It comes in both male and female varieties and if you don't want carob beans, avoid both.

The leaves are shiny and tough and the tree itself is highly resistant to drought. It can be kept trimmed and hedged and the wood is sought after by wood turners.

The bay tree is slow-growing and can be trimmed to a hedge, a cone or topiarised. People know it as a herb yielding the bay leaf.

The firewheel tree is a stunning plant to grow but small and slow outside of a tropical rainforest. It is hard to sell when the label says it grows to 30 m. In our climate it will grow 3-4 m tall as an upright bush, multi-stemmed with fabulous foliage up to 30 cm long. The flowers are something else, large grevillea-like rings or wheels of red flowers.

Plant one and your friends will ask "what is it?"

The cape chestnut from South Africa is just coming into bloom. This has to be one of the showiest of trees. It is slow growing while young and enjoys warm conditions.

The whole tree becomes heavily laden with large flower heads up to 20 cm across that are pink, dotted and orchidlike.

Over a period of, say, 10 years expect it to become 4-6 m tall and grow to a broad compact tree.

Shepparton High School has a magnificent one.

The fiddlewood is a West Indian tree that is planted in Adelaide as a street tree.

We have had them on the nursery for the past few years and have found them much hardier in winter than we expected.

Appealingly fragrant long thin white flower spikes appear in early summer.

The tree is dense with small foliage and grows to 3-6 m. It can be hedged or kept trimmed against a wall.

For something native and different, look out for the weeping pittosporum or a mulga.

In flower now is the evergreen tamarix, an erect, rather narrow tree that can be trimmed, which bears tiny pink flowers on 5 cm spikes.

We also like the native frangipani, and even a tall upright sesanqua camellia such as "Rose Ann".

To select a successful evergreen shade tree one needs a mind of one's own - and plenty of time!

- John Holder

Shepparton Garden Centre

535 Archer Rd, Kialla