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john_d31

The thing I like best about the garden in winter . . . .

John_D
20 years ago

is that it is ablaze with flowers right now -- mainly camellias, flowering cherry blossoms, primroses, and winter jasmine -- and fragrant with the aroma of 'Dawn' viburnum.

Comments (7)

  • Cady
    20 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I don't have to weed, and snow covers up the leaves and twigs I didn't get around to cleaning up last fall. :)

    In New England, we don't have anything "ablaze" right now except woodstoves and fireplaces. But, the red berries of Ilix verticillata are really popping against the snow-covered landscape, and the jagged branches of redtwig dogwood, along with seedheads on Rudbeckia and Echinacea look nice. Conifers and evergreen hollies, boxwood and rock ferns save the day by lending their green to the otherwise bland winter setting.

    And, my bamboos are refreshingly green. On a balmy day, they almost trick me into thinking it's spring.

  • Lee@A Guide to Northeastern Gardening
    20 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Nandina domestica (heavenly bamboo) IS wonderful at this time of year with its bright red berries contrasting with the surrounding landscape as well as the fiery red color of nandina firepower next to the white of dusty miller and and burgendy of heuchera. The garden is still alive with a variety of colors of evergreens and at times the white of the snow is beautiful! A garden is wonderful all year round even if it has to be looked at from the inside!

  • ginger_nh
    20 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Shadows on the snow and my two new Harry Lauder's Walking Sticks (corylus avellana 'Contorta')

    Also light sparkles on ice and snow

  • Eduarda
    20 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Even though I also have flowers too - sasanqua cammelias, mahonia, red cestrum, even my China and Tea roses! - what I like best about the garden in the Winter are the evergreens and the berries. Conifers, hollies, nandina, firethorn. Thats where the main colour of my garden comes from at this time of the year. And I love my Christmas and sweet gum trees in the front garden, all decorated with white lights, glowing in the night.

    Merry Christmas everyone!
    Eduarda

  • Katy5
    20 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I love being able to see the soil between plants during the winter. I am reminded about keeping it healthy and what it's structure looks like- I do a lot of poking around. We started out with a big sand pit and each year the hummus and compost layers get deeper and deeper, and more incorporated.

  • bahia
    20 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I particularly appreciate some of the larger, older planted flowering trees in the neighborhood this time of year. Magnolias in particular are wonderful, with a few of the Magnolia soulangeana cultivars already in full bloom. VEry large Australian Tea Trees/Leptospermum scoparium cultivars are also gorgeous when in full bloom, and can get to be 20 feet tall here. Some deciduous trees act much differently here in balmy California than elsewhere in the USA. Liquidambar styraciflua cultivars such as 'Palo Alto', 'Festival' and 'Burgundy' will stay in colorful fall foliage color through January here, making one wonder if it is really winter after all!

    I especially love the possibilities of using other mediterranean climate plants from Australia and South Africa to give lots of winter blooms. Aloes in particular are already heavily in bloom, and tghe ubiquitous Aloe arborescens/Tree Aloe getting 8 feet tall and covered with hundreds of deep red bloom spikes set against the blue waters of the Pacific can be spectacular. Many of the Australian proteas are also in full bloom right now, such as the rose pink tulip shaped flowers of Protea 'Pink Ice', which can easily get to be 15 feet tall and have hundreds of blooms all at once. I wish the flowers didn't attract so many ants with all their nectar, as they are so messy to bring inside the house as cut flowers.

    I especially love the various bromeliads and Heliconias in bloom at this season, for giving that tropical aspect to the garden when I would most like to be some place tropical. It never ceases to amaze me that so many of these can tolerate our near freezing night time temps and still look so tropical. A tree sized Tibouchina organensis is a vision in the garden at this season, with a scattering of soft violet flowers set against the fuzzy red new foliage and deep green mature foliage. A giant Tree Daisy/Montanoa grandiflora is mostly through blooming now, (it was still buzzing with bees a couple of weeks ago, with masses of white daisies with deep yellow centers), and even the forming seed heads of plump chartreuse green color are showy for several months yet. Winter storms can quickly cut this show short by breaking overly weighted down branches on the Montanoa, so I try to appreciate it while it lasts.

    One of the few deciduous shrubs that I have fallen in love with is the very sculptural smooth gray succulent stems of Edgeworthia chrysantha 'Gold Rush', with the fat flower clusters of gold at all the branch tips, and fragrant to boot. This one is just starting to open the first flower buds, as it dropped the last of the pale yellow leaves. Another fragrant and tender bloomer from the Himalayas is also in bloom now, Luculia pinceana, with mildly spicey pink blooms in November, December and January.

    We are fortuante to have lots of foliage color this season as well, with the orange hued foliage of the grassy Libbertia peregrinans and Carex testacea contrasting nicely with the deeper hues of pinkish red Phormiums such as P. 'Maori Sunset' and the deep, deep reds of the very tall and upright Phormium 'Guardsman', or the bright yellow arching foliage of Phormium 'Yellow Wave'. Although the foliage is just green, the fresh new growth and lacey form of Asparagus retrofractus is also nice this time of year, and combines well with the stiff upright fluffiness of the Restio Elegia capensis, pushing up lots of new fronds this season. Another Restio(South African equivalents of grasses), Chondropetalum tectorum is also an understated winter textural accent, with 4 to 6 foot long deep green reed-like stems. For the truely dramatic, every mild winter climate garden should also include the giant Restio, Thamnochortus giganteus, with emerald green foliage on 12 foot tall stems. Another bold foliage plant this season, from the island of Madeira, Melanoselinum decipiens, takes on pinkish/coppery tinges to the leaves in winter, and is already starting to develop the massively huge sweetly fragrant pink clusters of flowers, which can get to be 2 to 3 feet across.

    Some of the Australian Proteaceae shrubs are also very attractive in this season, with many Grevilleas in full bloom. Some of my favorites include the very large blooming G. 'Superb' in soft orange or the similar G. 'Robyn Gordon' in a deep red. The Purple Cone Flower/Isopogon formosus is also getting ready to burst into bloom with deep purple flowers looking like sea urchins, followed by the dried cones which give it its name. Various Leucadendron salignum cultivars and Leucospermum cultivars are also in full bud now, waiting another few weeks to start coloring up foliage bracts or opening flower buds to really give a burst of color. A visit to see these in full bloom in January or February is always worth a visit to University of California at Santa Cruz Arboretum, along with all of the Ericas in bloom.

    We even have some of the shrubs seen elsewhere in the colder parts of the USA giving winter color, such as tghe Cornus sericea cultivars or the deep red stems on Acer palmatum 'Sango Kaku'. Our native Ribes, R. sanguineum cultivar 'Ice Cycle' is also already blooming in my garden, just weeks after it lost the last of its fall foliage, and the pale green flowers of Helleborus argutifolius are also starting to show up, keeping the pale blue flowers of the low growing bulbous Ipheion uniflorum company. Several other bulbs coming from South Africa such as Chasmanthe aethiopica var ducktii in cheery daffodil yellow, and the deep blue iris like flowers of Moraea polystachya are also lovely this month.

    I enjoy gardening in coastal northern California especially for the gardening possibilities here, and the fact that this is actually the major growth season for our native plants as well as many of those from other mediterranean climates around the world. Plus, we generally stay balmy enough(9 winters out of 10 here in Berkeley), to satisfy my yen for growing all those cloudforest subtropicals from the mountains of the Andes, Himalayas and southern Mexico, which combine to create effects more springlike than winter...

  • gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
    20 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Bahia, I am jealous your Ribes is blooming already. White Icicle is my favorite (& well-beloved by my hummers, too) but it will be another good 6 weeks before I see blooms. The only 'icicles' in evidence at this moment are those from the meting overnight snowfall.

    While no flowering currants in bloom on the scene, there is no lacking of winter color here. Correas and hebes are still blooming their heads off, sarcococca, hellebores, camellias all in bloom, A few diehard hardy fuchsias, winter heaths and heathers, Schizostylus, early primulas, too. A very young 'Ruby Glow' witch hazel is full bloom. Those little spidery red flowers look great in contrast to the light dusting of snow and the droplets of melting snow on the Coral Bark maple look like diamonds suspended from the bright red branches.

    I love the garden in winter. It is often fragrant, austere in its presentation, yet colorful enough to be interesting. It's also the best time for me to see what needs to edited, removed, divided or relocated now that the seasonal flush of foliage and flowers is over.

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