The Winter Garden
Plan your garden for year-round interest.
In many parts of the country, the off-season lasts for five or six months. A great garden never slumbers, though. Verticality, wood fences and stone walls, plants with a winter habit, and pops of color maintain depth and perspective on the greyest days.
The lushness of summer fades in the dormant garden, but botanical interest carries through if you plant accordingly. Place evergreens to define contours. You’ll look out to see boxwood in the snow and think: That’s where my garden is.
Get a psychological boost knowing the landscape is there, waiting. Consider planting trees that have unusual bark: river birch, stewartia, paperbark maple, and Amur chokeberry. Shrubs such as red-twig dogwood, curly willows, the thorny hardy orange, and Harry Lauder’s Walking Stick have either colorful stems or “architectural” branches arresting when bare.
To retain texture and height, rather than cutting the garden clean during fall cleanup, leave the dried seedpods of sedums and alliums, plus ornamental grasses and anything else that holds intact.
— Tovah Martin
RELATED STORIES
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Nestled against a ledge, this stuccoed house in New England has a more somber air in winter. Still it welcomes with curves and height, interesting shrubs, and a latticed open porch. Espaliered pears add a vertical element. Photo by Edward Addeo.
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Photo by Edward Addeo.
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Cold-hardy statuary is always welcome in the winter garden, whether on a path or as a focal point in the distance. Photo by Joseph Valentine.
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Left uncut, the ornamental grass Miscanthus ‘Morning Light’ sways gracefully under snow. Photo by Joseph Valentine.
