IMO the architectural beauty of a northern snowy winter garden is a lovely as a colorful one. Thanks for the gorgeous pics!

What are those gorgeous trees? They almost look like crape myrtles on steroids.

Schoolhouse- Beautiful pictures!

Wicked nice winter garden pix!

The "trees" in the second pic are: center: ancient lilac (blue); to the right, a mock orange; on the left behind the lilac, a snowball bush.

Very pretty. You've done a great job planning for winter. Your garden is still beautiful and interesting.

Schoolhouse, that first photo is magazine worthy. Absolutely gorgeous.

Beautiful! Love them all, Schoolhouse, esp the snow covered birdhouse. :)

Thank you!

Pretty!

Are you saying the middle tree grouping in the second photo is mock orange? I have only seen mock orange as a shrub. Mine grows very slowly and has quite thin branches. I wonder how old it has to be to have such lovely twisted trunks.

BEAUTIFUL! BEAUTIFUL!

"Are you saying the middle tree grouping in the second photo is mock orange?"

No, I wrote that the center shrub (nearest the stone wall) is a very old lilac.

Sorry, I misread or misthought or something. All are more tree like than I have seen before. Do you know how old they are? I would love to see a photo of them in bloom.

The lilac was here when I moved here in 1978, planted by my Uncle probably in the 1950's maybe earlier? There are also two more of these old lilacs in the garden, one white and one purple. The snowball bush and the mock orange (which is to the extreme right in the photo I posted earlier) were also planted by him.

The mock orange:
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An older photo of the lilac and snowball bush from 2007 (before stone walls):
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Another pic of the snowball bush:
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Schoolhouse - I love those big old shrubs. People are surprised what they can do if left to show their real natures and not hacked about to 'control' them. I really like the look of your garden - full and blousy with lots of green, not tortured blobs of colour with blank space in between.

Thank you for the blooming photos. Very beautiful!

I had to come back to look again.
I absolutely applaud your work in creating such a lovely garden! I love all the evergreen topiary and natural growth shrubberies. I completely agree with flora's critique!

Now, tell me how to change mine into that kind of garden. I know what I want, but cant see how to do it on my property!!! I am totally serious!

Love it!
~Annie

Thank you for the lovely pictures. You've given me some new ideas. Are the plantings under the Mockorange boxwood?
Thanks,
Kitty

Yes it is boxwood, but the photo is misleading. That boxwood hedge is actually a crescent shaped bed in front,some distance away from the mockorange not surrounding it. I fill the crescent bed with a colorful annual(s) every year.

Love the big old shrubs and boxwoods too, but one thing to remember is that just when they look their fullest and are "just perfect" it's usually time to cut and prune back. If you don't they crowd each other or make a casual stroll through the garden complicated. Then you have a year or maybe two before they grow back to that "just perfect" look.

Such are the ways of a garden. We work so hard to achieve that one "wow" moment and then it's time to begin all over again.