Winter Garden

A garden doesn’t have to look bleak and desolate during the winter months. Here’s how to keep it looking beautiful all year long.

1. Form and Shape
The forms and shapes of the plants themselves can lend interest to the garden in winter, whether it’s the carefully pruned lollipop shapes pictured above, horizontal hedges, or the natural pyramidal shapes of many coniferous evergreens.

2. Berries, Seed Heads, and Seedpods
In addition to providing winter interest, many seed heads, seed pods, and berries such as those growing on winterberry holly, are also an excellent way to attract wildlife to the garden.

3. Twigs and Bark
Twigs and bark are yet another way to add interest to gardens in winter. There are quite a few shrubs with twigs that are light gray, brown, bright green, red, or even yellow in color. Native trees like the river birch pictured above, striped maple or moosewood that has vertical white stripes on greenish bark both have interesting bark, and hornbeam aka blue beech and musclewood because of its “muscular” looking trunk and bark, has an interesting look to it as well.

Coral Bells 4. Foliage Color
Foliage can add winter interest to every garden, whether it’s the golden hues of dried grasses, the dark greens of conifers or the lighter green shades of broadleaf evergreens and perennials whose foliage stays put over the winter including boxwood, inkberry holly, bergenia, and coral bells ‘chocolate ruffles’ (pictured above), or plants like Ajuga reptans whose foliage turns a darker greenish-purple in winter.

Winter Statuary 5. Sculpture, Statuary, and Benches
Sculpture, statuary, and benches add beauty as well as structure and form to the garden and look lovely against dark green foliage of evergreens or covered in snow.