I have planted blue point junipers in front of my potager. I wanted them for their pyramidal form and because they are drought tolerant which is important in New Mexico. I planted 6, 2 did not make it and they went back to Home Depot. I will probably replace them. My hope isfor them to be somewhat of a windbreak in a few more years. Eventually I will plant some shrubs that keep their berries over the winter and I hope to get some roses that make rose hips as well.

So far my poor potager has been somewhat abandoned during the winter. I only have some beautyberry bushes at the front corners that keep their bright purple berries most of the winter. (They must take horrible to birds).

I've love how the Barnsley House potager incorporates tiny box with lettuces. Then the box gives structure all winter. I'm hesitant to plant because I'd be the one to mix in some box leaves with my lettuce harvest!

I don't have any evergreen shrubs in my potager, but I would use holly, if it weren't bad for the horses. (The potager is right next to their pasture.)

Holly is such a pretty shrub and I love the red berries in the fall/winter. Also, arborvitaes would be a nice screen/windbreak if you have room on the north side of the garden.

I do have two little Alberta Spruce in the fairy garden. Something like that on the corners, or at the entrance of the potager, might be nice, too :)

I've uses an Arborvitae hedge to enclose the north side of my potager & to give me some privacy from the side street (I'm located on a corner lot). Here are some pics from this spring, its all fairly new yet, so it needs to do some growing)

Looking NE from the west end of my potage:

Looking NW from the east end of the potager. Because I live in z4 snow country, I left a 8' wide grass strip along the south side (concrete drive that you see) so I have a place to blow snow. The potted plants & moveable green arbor are used to create an illusion of a south side summer hedge.

East side fence & metal arbor (to back yard). 'Blue Angel' clematis just planted on arbor so needs to do some serious growing.

Outside the east end of the potager looking west thru the arbor at my 2 plum trees. (unfortunately a summer wind storm snapped one of the plums off right at the graft so I'll need to replace it next spring----@%$#^&@!!!!!!)

I have planted boxwoods on two, soon to be three sides of my potager. I planted Japanese box with plans for it to grow about waist high and take the place of a fence. My beds are edged in decorative concrete blocks, so their structure adds beauty to the potager in winter too. This year, I am going to wrap my entryway arch, bench arch, and bean "teepees" with little white lights. I'm considering using them all winter and not just at Christmas. Think that would be tacky? I just hate winter...anything to cheer it up!

Back to the boxwoods:
alib: I have used a fair amount of box around my house in ornamental gardens too. I can tell you that they have fairly hungry/thirsty roots and can be detrimental to plants that grow very near them. I have resorted to root pruning them from time to time with a sharp spade to prevent them from stressing other plants. Because of this, I would think twice about using them as edging around vegetables, even though it would look great.

wirosarian, your potager is just beautiful. It will be a knockout in a few years as your shrubbery takes on more size. Congratulations! And thanks for the photos.