Your Winter Garden

As the days get shorter and the nights get longer, you can feel the nip in the air. Winter is just around the corner. There are several ways to treat a winter garden—one would be to shut the door and not venture out until spring!

Real gardeners continue to seek the solitude of the winter landscape. As you trek out into the winter scenery there are many trees, vines, grasses, and perennials that not only provide great visual interest but also supply food and shelter for wildlife. Trees provide structure in an otherwise naked landscape. Some trees with uncommon bark in our area are River Birch, Betula nigra with its exfoliating pink cinnamon trunk; Paper Birch, Betula papyrifera with its stark white bark; and Paperbark Maple, Acer girseum whose beautiful red brown color is exposed as the bark peels. Conifers provide structure and color all winter. Leafed evergreens such as Oregon Grape, Mahonia aquafolium, Blue Hollies, Ilex x meserveae, and Japanese Hollies, Ilex crenata also provide winter color and bright berries. Other plants notable in winter are Harry Lauder’s Walkingstick, Corylus avellana “Contorta,” with contorted stems, the Yellow Twig Dogwood, Cornus stolonifera, “Flaviramea,” with bright yellow stems, and the Red Twig Dogwood, Cornus sericea, with lush red stems.

Leaving a perennial bed uncut through the winter means birds will visit to harvest the seeds. Birds are attracted to Coneflowers, Echinacea, Black Eyed Susans, Rudbeckia, and Coreopsis, among others. The vigorous Virginia creeper adds wonderful bright red highlights to your yard in the fall and also lets our feathered friends know that the berries are ripe for eating. Other fruits birds enjoy are rose hips and the small fruit from Ornamental Crabapples.

So bundle up and head on out to your garden this winter. There’s much to appreciate while you daydream of what mother nature will bring in the spring.

—Rebecca Needles, Garden Staff