Of course, the gardening year never really starts or ends. It is one continuous, entwining circle. A succession of tasks and pleasures; where one plant dies and another grows up to take its place. A balance of planning for tomorrow and next month and five years hence, whilst living for today. —Mahatma Ghandi
Like me, you’re probably nodding and smiling as you reflect on Ghandi’s observations on gardening. Spring is in the air, and we who garden are sharpening our trowels and buying new gardening gloves. Maybe you’ve looked over last year’s garden diary and photos, and you’re thinking about a few changes in your garden. One project to consider is extending your garden’s year-round beauty.
A garden that offers beautiful lines and colors 12 months of the year is a bit of a challenge. If you’re ready to take on that challenge, here are a few things to consider: (A) plants that add color in the winter and (B) review your mature plants for expanding seasonal color.
A. Coloring your winter garden.
Witch Hazel
While your garden’s winter appearance is still fresh in your mind, consider how to add color next winter.
Pause here: Success for any garden project depends on 4 things: watering, mulching, fertilizing, and pruning. We’re doing a lot of that now that Spring is here, but don’t forget to continue these essential activities into autumn in preparation for the winter garden you’re planting now. Now is the time to expand your garden’s seasons. So, let’s get started:
1. Consider the heights and widths of your garden when all the lovely foliage has wilted and the neighbor’s cement block garage or doghouse are peaking at you through the fence. Where do you need height? Where breadth of growth?
2. Three types of plantings can enhance the color and architecture of next winter’s garden – trees (conifers and deciduous), shrubs and bushes, and perennial plants.
3. Starting with trees and shrubs, here are some wonderful choices to plant now for beautiful colors next November:
Witch Hazel—a small tree or large shrub, its elegant branches are festooned with feathery blossoms; yellow, orange, or red, depending on the variety, from January to March. Witch Hazel is valued for its medicinal uses too.
Dogwood, red or yellow twigged—a familiar small tree in our region, its renowned for white or pink spring show. But the red or yellow winter bark is a showstopper! Dogwood’s easy to plant and maintain. (Whether you’re doing it yourself or using those wonderful, strong gardeners.)
Copper crape myrtle—you may already have one of these beauties in your garden. The copper crape myrtle’s bark may be cinnamon, red, beige, or yellow. The smoothness of the tree’s trunk enhances the elegance of the trunk.
Winterberry, Serviceberry, & Beauty Berry shrubs—these guys are a chorus of winter delight. Each has clusters of berries in reds or purple. They fill in nicely in areas where the flowers of summer are no longer on display.
4. Don’t forget to include in your plans those sturdy plants that bloom in summer and into the early winter. They include:
Camelias—glossy, green leaves and showy blossoms in shades of pink and red. Stunning in February, if they’re planted in a protected area they can become bushes.
Hellebore—if they love where you’ve planted them, they’ll give you blossoms from November through to March! Pink, white, and green.
Winter jasmine—that lovely vine, flowers now and even in February. Keep an eye on that vine. It may get out of hand.
Kale and Ornamental Cabbage—to avoid legginess, plant or pot them in autumn; they add color and texture to winter’s blandness.
Ornamental Cabbage
B. Year-round color.
Coordinating the colors of our flowering plants is a familiar challenge for all of us who garden. Changing conditions in the garden may require some revisions in the planting. Consider these:
Blue Mistflower
1. Sun-to-shade ratios: The sunny garden has its problems with watering and fertilizer, but the shade garden has those problems plus the problem of encouraging color in the shade. Are those lovely trees casting shadows further over the flowerbeds? Will the neighbor’s new addition block the morning sun? Here are a few suggestions for the shady parts of your garden
Actaea or Fairy Candles—pink with dark maroon foliage
Blue Mistflower—tiny purple flowers bloom in early autumn
Bottle Gentian—blue flowers bloom in early autumn
Coral Bells—bright autumn flowers
Windflowers—pink and purple autumn flowers
Korean Angelica–beautiful red to purple clusters, but… biennial.
Turtlehead–clustered pink blossoms on a tall-ish stalk.
2. Space: crowding & expanding: March gives us some idea about which plants we know and love have survived winter and where sturdy plants have grown too large for their places in the garden.
Wander among the flowerbeds checking for emerging green on mature plants or telltale grayish-brown where green shoots should appear.
Observe the “footprints” of favorite plants. Can the too-large plants be divided, or must they be moved to a different location in the garden?
Where space has opened up, reconsider sunlight and moisture, and which new plants might settle in nicely. (Don’t forget this may be the perfect opportunity to add the winter-color plants.)
As Ghandi so wisely observed, in our gardens the planning and work are never done. But it is fun to try some new plants for the dazzling surprises they’ll provide all through the year.
