Your garden is not something that can only be enjoyed in the warmer months of the year. Even if your climate is too cold to really make use of your outdoor space, you’re still looking at it through the glass from within your house. So it makes sense to have some elements in the garden that give a bit of winter flair. Here are 7 winter landscaping tips to help you achieve that goal.
Contents
- Choose Plants That Bear Fruit in the Winter
- Use Trees with Colorful or Textured Bark
- Evergreens Keep Their Foliage All Year Long
- Fill Your Garden with All-Season Perennials
- Fill Your Summer Planters with Evergreens
- Focus More on the Hardscapes in Your Yard
- Group a Variety of Plants Together for More Depth
Choose Plants That Bear Fruit in the Winter
There are many shrubs and trees that produce fruit or berries during the winter. These plants can help bring small dots of color to a white, wintery landscape.
Popular choices include crabapples and hawthorns. Crabapples are typically planted for their colorful flowers. However, they also produce berries that remain throughout the winter. The fruit of the crabapple may be red, yellow, or gold, depending on the variety.
Hawthorns are small trees that produce flowers in the spring and bear fruit in the fall. As the temperatures start to drop, the fruit turns red and remains in place throughout the winter.
Planting these trees or shrubs throughout your yard will ensure that you always have color during the winter. They also provide strong focal points that you can build around as you select other plants.
Use Trees with Colorful or Textured Bark
Choosing trees with interesting or colorful bark can also break up the monotony of a snow-covered yard. These trees offer attractive landscaping features even when their leaves fall off.
There are several options to consider, including the river birch. River birch has a cinnamon-colored bark with a creamy, white interior.
Other options include several varieties of maple trees. Some of these trees have bright red or orange peeling bark during the winter. The paperbark maple is a popular choice.
Dogwoods are also popular. Their leaves drop in the fall, leaving the branches bare. However, the bark has a unique, scale-like texture.
Evergreens Keep Their Foliage All Year Long
Evergreen trees keep their leaves throughout the year, which is why they are perfect for winter landscaping. Pine trees are common choices. However, they are many varieties of evergreens. Some produce green foliage, while others offer various shades of red, yellow, and gold.
Taller evergreen shrubs and trees are useful for adding privacy around the perimeter of your yard. They also provide wind and sound barriers when planted close together.
Spruces are a great choice, as they are available in dwarf varieties that can be planted in large planters or near smaller fruit-producing shrubs. These are also the trees that are typically grown for use as Christmas trees.
Fill Your Garden with All-Season Perennials
If you want your garden to remain colorful during the winter, choose perennials with evergreen foliage. These plants provide additional coverage throughout the year and can bring more color to a winter landscape.
Ornamental grasses can be used throughout your garden to add color. Popular choices include prairie dropseed and bluestem grasses.
Prairie dropseed grows about 15 inches tall and produces thick, green foliage. As the temperature gets colder, the foliage changes to an orange or copper color. Bluestem grasses produce blue, red, copper, and even purplish foliage.
The Christmas fern is also a great choice for a garden. It offers thick, ferny foliage until late in the winter.
Fill Your Summer Planters with Evergreens
As winter approaches, some of your outdoor planters, window boxes, and other containers may become bare. Instead of leaving these planters without plants, you can transfer evergreens, spruces, and other plants to them that maintain colorful foliage during the winter.
You do not need to plant these evergreens in the planters. You can simply collect boughs of various colors and arrange them in the containers to create small winter-time arrangements throughout your landscaping.
Focus More on the Hardscapes in Your Yard
Winter is also a great time to pay more attention to your hardscaping. These features remain in place throughout the year, making them an important consideration for winter landscaping. Porches, benches, trellises, and other structures help create more depth to your landscape.
Hardscaping tends to stand out more during the winter. Along with benches or porches, you may want to add sculptures around your property. Garden sculptures can become focal points surrounded by the plants discussed, such as trees or shrubs that bear fruit in the winter.
Group a Variety of Plants Together for More Depth
When choosing winter plants, pay attention to their potential size and color. Group plants together based on these factors. Typically, you should start with the largest plants, such as evergreens or fruit-producing trees. Low-growing shrubs should be mixed with taller ornamental grasses, with the taller plants as the primary focal points.
Want to have some specific tasks and tips for the month of december? Read this article: 10 Tasks To Protect And Prepare Your Garden This December
