Plants for a Winter Garden

The transformation often happens gradually. The flowers slowly fade and fall leaves drop lazily as your garden drowsily transitions from colorful, lush summer to the subtle simpleness of winter.

Evergreen shrubs are an obvious pick when planting for a winter garden. As are evergreen groundcovers and vines like Boston Ivy. "Hens and Chicks" works in the winter, as well as different kinds of Euonymus.

Our Favorite Picks for Your Winter Garden:
Some perennials and deciduous shrubs that excel at providing interest in your winter garden may not be show stoppers the rest of the year. Some of our favorite exceptions include ornamental grasses, Winterberry, Red twig dogwood (Cornus sericea) and Harry Lauder's Walking Stick (Corylus).

Ornamental grasses like Miscanthus, Panicum, Blue Fescue and Blue Oat Grass, maintain their structure and some of their color during the fall and winter.

It's Got it All...
Picture the Red Twig Dogwood (Cornus sericea) in your garden with a light layer of snow clinging to its delicate red branches. The picturesque branches have brightened to a deep red with the cold weather. Suddenly a black-capped chickadee alights on a branch, displacing a fluff of the light snow. The bird stretches its neck to snap up a white berry from a twig. You think back to May and June when the shrub was graced with delicate white blooms and the shrubs branches were still brown in the heat of the summer. At six feet tall, you notice that should this shrub even reach its largest height of ten feet tall, it will still provide a nice transition to the trees behind it. Red Osier Dogwoods (Cornus sericea or Cornus stolonifera) are native to North America.

Harry Lauder's Walking Stick (Corylus) is a member of the Hazel family. Some varieties do produce nuts. Harry Lauder's Walking Stick (HLWS) was first discovered in the mid-1800s in England. Its most striking feature are the twisted branches and gnarled trunk. Harry Lauder's Walking Stick is not picky about location, light, water, or soil; it also resists most diseases and pests and is not considered to be invasive. It grows sloooowly, but some varieties may reach up to ten feet and spread out to twelve feet. Like all Hazels, HLWS produces pale yellow flowers called catkins that persist well into winter and contrast nicely against the gnarly brown branches. Harry Lauder's twisty branches make great focal points for indoor arrangements.

Winterberry (Ilex Verticilata) is one of our favorites. It's a native holly that loses its leaves (deciduous), the birds love it, it's easy to grow, requires little care, has few pests, and the berries are some of the last ones that birds will eat, so they are prominent through mid-winter.

Winterberry ranges in height from three to fifteen feet, and varies in width, also. In a wet area, it will spread into a dense thicket which provides shelter for birds. Given drier conditions, Winterberry will spread less.

With a light snowfall gracing its slender branches, it puts on a show comparable to the Red Twig Dogwood, but with red berries. For more berries, you'll need a harem of five female plants for each male.

Banish Boring and Bare
As your garden falls asleep, the foliage browns, curls, droops, and drops, the bones of your garden stand out. If it seems boring and bare, it's time to think of these features for the colder months: Size, Bark, Silhouette, and Berries. Not just the foliage and flowers that we think of in spring and summer.

Size and Bark, Bark, Bark.
Of course, with their prominent size, trees provide the largest points of interest year round. Unburdened by their cloak of leaves, their size, silhouette and bark are on display. Consider planting a Japanese Maple for its dark colored bark, or birch for its silvery sheen and layered bark. Known for their stately nature, elm trees are endowed with a lovely mottled bark. For texture, sugar maples have a deeply grooved bark.

Silhouette
In addition to Henry Lauder's Walking Stick, deciduous vines like wisteria can be trained to form strange, twisting sculptures for the winter.

Berries and Seeds Feed
Other trees, like Pagoda dogwood and Amelanchier, have interesting fruits or seeds that form during late summer and fall and persist well into winter.

NOTE: Although bittersweet's vines both produce berries and contort and twist, they are an invasive plant that chokes out native plants.

Adding a plant or two for winter interest will certainly work wonders to break up the dreary doldrums of winter.

Renee C. Brannigan