Embrace the Season With a Winter Garden While Waiting for Spring

I AM READY for spring. I’m dreaming of long and warm days, flowers, trees budding out and lazy days in the garden. But since winter has just begun, I’ve realized that I need to embrace this season and make the most of it.  Winter can feel like a long and dreary period, but a garden in winter is full of possibilities, and can be just as beautiful and delightful as spring and summer.

The winter garden can provide unique opportunities for experimenting with shapes, textures, colors and structures.  Because of the monochromatic nature of the light in winter, the use of color is especially important.  How many days do we look out the window and everything seems to be a slightly different shade of gray?

‘Winter interest’ is a term used by gardeners who live in colder climates and still long for something of interest in their garden when plants have gone dormant.  Winter interest can be achieved by using varying shapes, textures, colors and contrasts.   

FLOWERS

Some flowers are so reliable and readily available here in the northwest and they add such a cheery splash of color to any garden.  Primroses will bloom all winter and are probably the least expensive and most profuse of all the colors this time of year.  They look so beautiful planted together or nestled in with ornamental grasses, ivy or small evergreens.  Also very pretty and reliable are cyclamens, hellebores, flowering kale and winter pansies. 

TREES AND SHRUBS

For a more vertical accent, consider trees that display exfoliating bark.  Many birch varieties put on a lovely show of paper thin peeling bark in contrast with the darker colors underneath.  Bright branch colors (my favorite being the coral bark maple) are very pretty in any garden.  There are so many different shades of evergreens ranging from yellow, green, blue and variegated patterns of all of these hues.

DECORATIVE STRUCTURES, GARDEN ART

I love to go for a walk after a windstorm and gather branches, twigs and pinecones.  A wreath can be fashioned out of just about anything in our gardens and doesn’t cost a thing!  There are so many wonderful garden flags available – a fairly inexpensive way to brighten up any entryway or garden.  A bit more expensive, but very attractive are arbors, pergolas, benches, swings, etc.

BIRDS

No winter garden would be complete without the tiny chickadees flitting about or the thrill of seeing an occasional and very shy pilated woodpecker.  A winter habitat need not be expensive.  It can be as simple as a bird feeder and a water source.  Suet is a surefire way to attract lots of feathered friends.  Watching the birds dance happily in your garden is rewarding and captivating.

Until spring arrives, I hope you will look at the winter landscape with a different eye and explore the many possibilities – they are endless!

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"In gardening, all things useful are beautiful."   ~Tovah Martin