Fall Home Improvement

Winter Color

Susan Cloniger-Master Gardener Volunteer

September 17, 2002

     “A true gardener can see beauty in all seasons”, but the words winter and color used together in a complimentary fashion seem an oxymoron to Carolinians   who patiently wait the winter for the first signs and color of spring.  If you are one of those sunlight deprived individuals, below are a few gardening ideas to help lighten those months of gray.

      Winter is the perfect time to admire or evaluate the “bones” of your garden. After the garden sheds the vaudeville cloak of its summer perennial parade, what should be left is a distinguishable, often geometric, evergreen driven design.  If you decide in November that your garden bones are lacking, take this opportunity to add evergreens and conifers.   A rule of thumb to follow when making such selections is to make sure the color combinations you choose create balance and peacefulness in your landscape.  One way of achieving this is to choose evergreens and conifers in monochromatic tones…i.e. using all blue toned plant material or all yellow based plant material.  For variety, try layering splashes of color between evergreen borders.  A striking example is the use of juniper as a ground cover with red Barberries placed behind ground cover and finally encased with a taller juniper in back.  Secondly, do your homework; some evergreens lighten or darken with a change in the temperature.

             Winter is a perfect time to add lighting to your landscape.  When darkness descends at 5 p.m. , it’s comforting to come home from work to a tastefully lighted landscape.  Lighting not only lifts spirits, but also allows you to emphasize beautiful bark patterns of trees in the landscape like sourwoods, sweet gums, birches and cherry trees.  It provides an opportunity for the gardener to play with the shadowing of intricate limb patterns that may be lost to leaves in the summer months.  Cultivate and shadow shrubs such as corkscrew hazel, or Harry Lauder’s walking stick.  This shrub commands both intricate limb design and gorgeous catkins.  Keep in mind that brighter lighting is not always better.  Softer, casting light sets a more stunning mood for your landscape and will set it apart from the local superstore parking lot.  

  Winter is a wonderful time of the year to truly appreciate art in your landscape.  A walk in downtown historic areas can provide a cornucopia of artistic details in garden gates and fencing, as well as statues, birdbaths, walkways, fountains and other garden art. These are often hidden with plantings in the summer months, and are equally lovely at night with proper landscape lighting.

            The season of gray is also a great time for plants with variegation to shine.  Mahonia, a forgotten shrub in the southern garden, has beautifully variegated leaves.  It spews yellow blooms in the spring and dons black berries in the winter on which birds love to feast.  Aucuba, or spotted laurel, as well as Pieris japonica or Lily-of-the-valley bush are equally good selections.

     There are a variety of trees and shrubs that invite birds into a bleak winter landscape. Viburnum flowers in the earliest months of spring and provides food fare for the birds of winter.  Crabapples often leave hanging fruit throughout the cold months that provide a s splash of color and feast for birds.  Hawthorne and Mountain Ash are also good natural bird feeders.  Instead of deadheading roses, allow hips to form to entice feeding birds. 

    Longstalk holly has wavy green leaves with a smooth edge produce luscious, red berries on long pedicels.  This beautiful holly gives some Asian forest appeal to the garden as well, and weathers well through winds and summer drought.   

            Don’t forget groundcovers during this season.  Groundcovers such as ajuga are green throughout the winter and provide a contrast to bland turf.  If you’d like a green turf for Christmas, sow an annual crop of rye grass. As well as groundcovers, don’t forget vines and climbers.  Evergreen clematis hugs the cold masonry or weathered wood all winter and rewards the gardener with mounds of fragrant flowers in early March.

     The Christmas fern is another nice selection for shady areas in your landscape.  It is native to the eastern United States , and folklore states that the European settlers used the fern as holiday decorations.  In the spring, the unfolding crosiers add the plant’s beauty as each crosier is covered with silvery white scale that contrasts with the fern’s dark fronds.

 Be sure to include in your landscape the earliest of spring bloomers.  This would include the fragrant Daphne, particularly the ‘Alba’ or ‘Odora’ varieties.  Viburnum xbodnatens ‘Dawn’ flowers in the coldest months of the year and hamamelis, or witch hazel, makes a dazzling debut.  Also include   flowering quince or white forsythia. Try to incorporate early blooming hellebores such as Lenten Rose or snowdrops into your winter landscape.