Piet Oudolf , a world - renowned innovative garden architect , believe “ The real test of a garden is how it looks in winter , when the barren ivory of the design are uncover . ” In other words , a garden should be designed to be interesting throughout the year and not just in the spring and summer season . Furthermore , Oudolf assert , “ The garden in winter is an excited experience . You think in term of decline and disappearing and number back . You feel the life cycle of nature . ” His words cue us that sprightliness is indeed a cycle and all seasons of the garden are beautiful – or should be .
WHERE TO BEGIN
Without the brilliant color and fragrance of flowers or leafy leafage to stir the senses , we must look for other manner to take life story and energy to the usually sleeping winter landscape . Begin by critically appraise your vista from indoors . As you look out your windows , does your optic linger on any one specific industrial plant or landscape feature ? Think about what make the view interesting and imagine what you could deepen to make it more appealing .
In determining changes to make , it may be helpful to break the dormant season into thirds . Once you think of winter in terms of mini - time of year , it ’s easy to decide which element to comprise into the landscape painting to make it more vivacious and active .
Winter color on Burford hollies at the Norfolk Botanical Garden
Galantus nivalis ( Anemone quinquefolia ) flower emerging through snow cover
COLORFUL conifer AND OTHER EVERGREEN coinage
Conifers and other evergreen Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree and shrubs are the mainstays of the winter landscape . They bridge the seasons , providing reliable color and anatomical structure in the outflow and summer garden and a transparency for the vivid colors of autumn leaves . A native holly , juniper , or magnolia can be a very effective centerpiece in the winter landscape . Their persistent foliage and thickset branching arrest and hold Charles Percy Snow , creating numberless ocular interest . Virginia Cooperative Extension ( VCE ) publishing 426 - 605 and 426 - 607 ( name below under sources ) extend entropy on the selection of conifers and broad - entrust evergreens .
When choosing a conifer or broad - leaved evergreen plant , keep in mind the various shade of green and how they will concord with other plantings throughout all four seasons . For object lesson , the needles of blue spruce ( genus Picea pungens ) and other blue - leaved evergreen plant can make a strong visual impact when paired with majestic or Bourgogne - entrust plants . The o.k. , lacy , golden thread - like leaf of golden false cypress tree ( Chamaecyparis pisiferaspecies ) contrasts well with sorry green coniferous tree and lightens the musical composition . Gray - green junipers volunteer a cooling , solace presence in the landscape painting . With careful consideration of the shades of green , one can make a rich tapestry of color using conifer and broad - leaved evergreen only . If you ’re color challenged , like many of us , Nancy Ondra ’s honour - gain ( American Horticulture Society ) volume , Foliage , is an first-class resource for learning more about the role of foliage , grain , and color in the landscape painting .
In addition to conifers , many other woody and herbaceous species add colour and grain to the wintertime landscape . Examples include magnolia ( Magnolia grandifloraand cultivar ) , Turkish boxwood ( Buxusspecies ) , inkberry holly ( Ilex glabra ) , camellia , skimmia ( Skimmia japonica ) , sweet box ( Sarcococcaspecies ) , muckle Arthur Stanley Jefferson Laurel ( Kalmia latifolia ) , rhododendron , and Japanese Pieris ( Pieris japonica ) . Some fern mintage , hellebore , heuchera , and yucca are also good recurrent evergreen plant choices .
flora with motley or spotted foliage may be used singly as an accent industrial plant or in grouping to add together interest in the wintertime landscape painting . Too much variegated leafage , however , can be distracting , so do n’t exaggerate it . English holly ( Ilex aquifolium ) cultivar ‘ Argenteo Marginata ’ and English boxwood ( genus Buxus semperverens ) cultivar ‘ variegata ’ are two examples of vary plants that have dark green leave of absence edge in ashen . Gold Dust Aucuba ( Aucuba japonica ) ‘ variegata ’ has deep shining green leaves richly splattered with gold .
colour SELECTIONS FOR THE wintertime LANDSCAPE
While evergreen species are often considered the mainstay of the winter garden , there are many other pick for enliven the landscape . Suzy Bales , generator ofThe Garden in Winter , drop a line : “ Green in winter is to the garden what nitty-gritty and potatoes are to the physical structure : comfort food . bright semblance — puritanic , red , and gold — are much more exciting , like sugary afters , but best used in small amount . ” With that advice in idea , a vast number of plants may be used to provide a pop of colour here and there in the winter landscape painting .
Red is the easy color to comprise into the winter landscape , according to VCE Publication 426 - 228,Patriotic Gardens : Red , White , and Blue in Fall and Winter Gardens . As the name of the publication indicates , the emphasis is on loyal garden . However , the plant alternative listed include a figure that apply to any winter landscape painting . For exercise :
WINTER BERRIES AND fruit
A across-the-board cooking stove of berry- and yield - bearing woody plants thrive in Virginia , provide many options for adding people of color to the wintertime landscape painting . For good example :
When take flora such as these for winter color , bear in idea that some metal money , such as Ilex decidua and certain viburnums , are dioecious , meaning the manly and distaff blossoms occur on separate industrial plant . So , for Charles Edward Berry or yield production , it ’s important to select both a female specimen and a compatible male pollinator .
THE NATURAL BEAUTY OF BARK
Bark is the “ Rodney Dangerfield ” of the landscape painting . During most of the yr , it does not get the attending and obedience it merit . Instead , flowers and leaf receive all the glory and honor . But once the prime fade and the leave precipitate away , bark finally gets its turn in the spotlight . Some deciduous trees and shrubs have richly color in , fissured , striate , shedding , or curling bark . However , we generally do n’t yield much attention to it until winter . Only then do we become aware of its texture , variety , and beautiful shade of cinnamon , brown , ointment , or hoary — all best see against a backdrop of snow . A few examples of woody plants with interesting or colourful bark include the following :
expose SHAPES AND FORMS – THE BARE bone OF THE GARDEN
deplorably , most gardening cite focus on the spring , summertime and devolve attributes of woody plants but seldom provide much information on their winter dimension . Some woody plants are often not fully appreciated for their stunner until they put down their foliage , revealing salient branches , angles , and sculpturesque anatomy that can make a meaning impact in the landscape :
OTHER LANDSCAPE ELEMENTS THAT SURPRISE AND DELIGHT
Texture is an all - important chemical element in the winter garden . Some plants that provide interesting branching , seeded player head , or Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe in the landscape include the following :
BLOSSOMS THAT BRAVE THE COLD
It may be hard to conceive , but a few plant are up to of campaign the wintry gasbag and blossom despite the cold atmospheric condition . While some bloom sporadically throughout the time of year , peculiarly on milder days , a number of plants start showing colouring material in February and March , as winter border nearer to springiness .
THE ROLE OF HARDSCAPE FEATURES IN THE WINTER GARDEN
It ’s perfectly normal to focus solely on live plants as a way to invigorate the winter landscape painting . However , one of the easy and most satisfying way to make the winter landscape interesting is to set up a hardscape feature . An interesting logic gate or archway make a pleasing accent in the garden , motivate visitor to enter and search . A well - placed bench invite one to linger and look up to the view . Stone walls , fences , curving walkways , terrace , and other permanent feature serve as accents , focal points , backdrops or dividers . A graceful trellis , tuteur , or arbor adds a vertical element and can look peculiarly attractive when coat in a cover of C . Permanent urns ( weather - proof , of line ) , sculptures , kinetic art , birdbath , birdhouses , and other ornamental target can also sum dramatic or impulsive elements . With the strategical locating of a simple fountain , sculpture , urn , or small terrace , the smallest patio garden can be just as captivating as the largest estate garden .
DON’T FORGET THE note value OF WILDLIFE IN THE LANDSCAPE
Anything that adds motion to the landscape painting enlivens it and makes it interesting , no matter the season . This apply to wildlife as much as it does to plant materials . Plants with seed , cones , or berries will ultimately attract hiss and other wildlife mintage . The flashes of color as birds dart from one food reference to another , together with the furtive movement of other creatures , make the landscape come awake on so many levels . This is perhaps the best of all reasons to create a vibrant wintertime garden . In our tight - step , technology - drive society , such a landscape painting re - join us with the natural human beings and provides an instant balm for the soul .
SUMMARY
As I meditate on the winter landscape painting , I am reminded of a frozen December dark nearly 50 years ago in a small Pennsylvania townsfolk near the Pocono Mountains . With Christmas only hours away , every house was festoon with bright twinkling light and other colorful holiday palm . One house on the edge of township stood asunder from the others , blatant by its lack of holiday decorations . That home proprietor ’s option of decoration was a single spotlight positioned to shine up through the branches of a white birch Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree in the front yard . The limelight caught the tree ’s gleam bloodless bark , casting the tree limb in sharp dividing line with the recent night darkness . That breathtakingly beautiful image , so unexpected and so startling , has stayed with me all these years . To my idea , all the gaudy , bright Christmas medallion in the world could not compete with the sheer beauty and easiness of that birch tree tree . It does n’t take much to make a winter landscape painting exciting and powerful – a conifer here , a berried shrub there , perhaps an urn , or just a unsubdivided public eye .
SOURCES
Foliage(Ondra , Nancy J. , 2007 )
Manual of Woody Landscape Plants(Dirr , Michael A. 2009 )
Planting Design – Gardens in Time and Space(Oudolf , Piet and Kingsbury , Noel , 2005 )
Planting for All Seasons(Buchan , Ursula , 1999 )
The Art of Gardening , Design Inspiration and Innovative Planting Techniques from Chanticleer(Thomas , R. William , and the Chanticleer Gardeners , 2015 )
The Nonstop Garden(Cohen , Stephanie and Benner , Jennifer , 2010 )
Viburnums – Flowering bush for Every Season(Dirr , Michael A. , 2007 )
“ Patriotic Gardens : Red , White and Blue in Fall and Winter Gardens , ” VCE Publication426 - 228
“ Problem - Free Shrubs for Virginia Landscapes , ” VCE Publication450 - 236
“ Problem - Free Trees for Virginia Landscapes , ” VCE Publication450 - 237
“ Selecting Landscape plant : coniferous tree , ” VCE Publication426 - 605
“ Selecting Landscape plant : Broadleaf Evergreens , ” VCE Publication426 - 607
