The charm of a snowy garden: what makes us happy in winter
The changing of the seasons gives the garden the opportunity to constantly change. It’s always on the move, from one season to the next. A well-planned location is good at any time: in spring, when nature is just waking up and giving us primroses; and in summer when it is buried in the lush splendor of the flower beds; and fading bright in the fall; and in the off-season, when the fallen snow creates a very special image, so different from the usual appearance of a summer garden.
The first snow transforms the garden. Author’s photo
The conciseness and monochrome of the winter landscape poses certain challenges to the owners and imposes special conditions. These must show an extraordinary imagination to bring new decoration solutions to their conservatory. Provided, of course, that the owners are in their garden in winter. (It’s no secret that many say goodbye to their favorite cell until spring.)
enchanted world
Snow hides flaws in home-made design. Greenhouses, beds and flower beds at this time are covered with deep snowdrifts, and one can only guess what lay there in the summer. Any garbage that is surely present in every garden is also covered by the snow. A lush white blanket enveloping the garden creates an image of amazing beauty.
Conservatory at dusk. Author’s photo
But only at first glance does the garden seem a boring sight in winter. This is not entirely true. Firstly, because there are not only white and black colors here. The sparkling white of the snowdrifts is complemented by color accents such as berries of barberry, chokeberry and viburnum, which could not surround the cheeky thrush field berries.
The fruits of barberry, chokeberry and viburnum add bright accents and attract birds. Author’s photo
Yellow alder catkins, crimson rowan clusters and pink snowberry “pearls” draw the eye.
Earrings made of yellow alder and pink snowberry “pearls” are eye-catching. Author’s photo Winter is the period of victory of white drainage with red shoots. In winter, its plantings are an eye-catcher.
Red shoots of white derain are especially spectacular against the background of snow.
In winter, the garden shows clear building lines and a simple picket fence, which are picturesquely complemented by graphics of bare trees and snow-covered bushes. At this time of year, garden furniture, benches and small architectural forms – all kinds of arches, trellises and pergolas – do their part to decorate.
Conservatory Graphics. Author’s photo
Every detail is important here. If in the summer there is a lot hidden and decorated with greenery, then in winter everything is visible: a broken fence, the repair of which does not reach hands, and a battered, unpainted wooden gate, and firewood collected somewhere in the corner, and an abandoned brazier. Snow is able to create real art objects out of it.
Firewood and a simple picket fence look very different in winter. Author’s photo
Irreplaceable conifers
The first fiddle in the conservatory decor is undoubtedly played by evergreens. Coniferous trees are the main color accent in a monotonous snowy room.
Fir with cones is a spectacular decoration of a snowy garden. Author’s photo
In addition, although they are called evergreen, the color of their needles can be very different. There are gray and ash-blue shades, as well as golden or bronze shades.
The color of the needles can be very different
The shapes are also varied: they can be columnar, pyramidal, spindle-shaped, round or ovoid, and they also have no clarity. However, tall trees with a columnar or weeping crown shape should be preferred, since prostrate and dwarf varieties hide under a blanket of snow.
Prostrate and dwarf varieties hide under a blanket of snow
It is worth noting that ordinary pines and larches are not suitable for a small garden: they will be too monumental. The latter also lose their needles by winter and are of no decorative value during this period.
The selection of conifers is currently very large. With the current range available to us, there are many options. do you want a tree The well-known rather pretentious blue “Kremlin” ‘Glauca’, which grows as a tall tree, is not suitable for a standard garden of 6 hectares.
Over time, a charming young Christmas tree will grow into a giant, for small homesteads as a tapeworm, a low variety ‘Hoopsii’ with bluish-blue needles is suitable. There is an ordinary spruce of the ‘Inversa’ variety, in which shoots hang picturesquely. Serbian spruce with unusual needles can also be planted as a dominant: it is dark green on top and white-bluish on the inside. The beauty of this 4 meter tall tree is complemented by bright violet-purple glossy buds. Korean fir is also famous for purple cones. True, they have to wait about 10 years for advertising (it grows very slowly).
Serbian spruce is extremely decorative
Of the junipers, pyramid and columnar plants are preferred, such as ‘Skyrocket’ , ‘Hibernica’ , ‘Blue Arrow’ . The juniper ‘Wallis’ is extremely decorative, having a vase-shaped shrub and vertical shoots with hanging tips. Its needles are gray-green in summer and turn bronze in winter.
Large juniper adorns the conservatory
But the most correct choice will still be planting thuja. Firstly, this is a relatively fast-growing culture, and secondly, unlike juniper and cypress, they do not burn in the spring – a very valuable quality.
- ‘Pyramidalis Compacta’ with dark green needles is well suited as a dominant.
- ‘Cristata’ is famous for its unusual, shell-shaped, spirally growing fan shoots.
- ‘Smaragd’ is an emerald green cultivar. It is suitable both as a tapeworm and in mixed compositions. In addition, it is ideal for creating a topiary and turning it into a piece of garden art, but this is already a premium garden decoration!
Pay attention to the garden rarity – the Canadian hemlock ‘Pendula’, an elegant low tree with drooping branches. There will be something to admire in the snowy garden!
The right choice would be planting thuja, but I want to warn you that you should not plant these species and varieties all at once. It is necessary to show some selectivity, to think a hundred times before deciding to buy. It can happen that everyone who is individually admirable competes with each other and the garden becomes overloaded.
According to renowned landscape designers, coniferous trees should not account for more than half of all plants in the garden. The best solution might be to plant several specimens of the same species in different parts of the garden, but in such a way that they can be seen from every vantage point at the same time.
Conifers can be interesting to combine
Handmade decorative elements
All of this refers to natural decorative elements. But one person can transform the winter look of the garden and make it into a real fairy tale. First, due to lighting. The day is short in winter and elegant garlands of lamps will really make the garden magical. And how wonderful the bright Christmas balls of the New Year, which are hung here and there on the branches of the trees!
New Year’s balls dye the garden. Photo of the author
Set snowmen with children and arrange a competition for the best “sculpture”. When winter is frost, decorate your garden until spring. In the frosty winter, snowmen will revive their website until spring. Photos of the author, even utilitarian protective caps for conifers can decorate the garden in winter. Sometimes they can be confused with fabulous dwarfs, which they looked at and frozen in the cold in the cold admiration.
Winter fairy tale with gnomes. Photo of the author
Diss the feeder on the trees. You will not only add the garden of identity, but will also be extremely necessary for the wintering of birds.
The feeders help the birds to survive winter. Photo of the author
Finally, I would like to say that it is now time to think about how you can make your winter garden more decorative. Think about how you can improve the structure of the garden, which structured plants should be planted, which can give colors to the strict bandwidth of the sno w-covered area. And then make an action plan and landings in spring guided by these goals.
Winter flower garden – perennials that are also beautiful in winter
The beauty of the winter garden can not only be given with the help of “right”, well though t-out skeletal landings. Not only conifers with a beautiful bark or a pattern of branches, winter green stars look good against the background of a white winter bed set. Today a separate type of flower garden has been released in Landscape Design – winter. These are flower beds on which the plants are selected with a sight to admire them in the coldest season.
Winter flower garden. © Wildstuden
Winter flower garden is the special ensemble in the garden
In winter, even in the best, carefully planned gardens, bare areas and platforms remain. Favorite herb s-perennials and beautifully flowering stars completely leave the garden scene and leave empty spots. But garden plants are not only lush and spectacular greens or beautiful flower. And if in the winter season of calm and preparation for spring to look at the floor without plants, it is boring, then simply do not use perennials that are beautiful even in winter. So that the garden in the coldest does not appear empty, it should be added to its design several winter flower beds – compositions that are specially planned for frosty time.
Winter flower beds are usually a special variety, not too large flower beds or flower beds that arise with the target for the season when the vegetation of all garden plants ends.
In winter bushes and some onions that wake up before everyone else, is a luxury that can only enjoy in the south. Winter flower beds do not create at all.
Winter flower beds are compositions of plants that look attractive even after stable frosts thanks to individual decorative details – leaves, stems, inflorescences, berries, seed boxes. Even after the garden, they limit the breath of winter, they enable flower beds such as empty sections with frozen soil, but so attractive and multifaceted in colors and textures of a winter show, which attracts attention to bright precious details.
A few years ago, winter flower beds were only considered an attribute of garden design in mild climate zones, where evergreen fully develop their beauty. But the fashion for Scandinavian design, which also conquered the landscape world, drew attention to the possibilities of designing flower beds in interesting variations that do not look empty in the middle of strict winter.
Where winter delights with its tenderness, the winter flower beds are of course more lavish, but also in the south everything depends on the weather and the circumstances. Winter flower beds always look best under a thin blanket of snow when the garden is only touched by the hint of winter, on thawing days or in lo w-snow times. Large snowfalls will even hide giants among them. But on days on which you can visit the garden freely and carry out inspections, your eyes will certainly come across something beautiful and unexpected instead of flat, empty areas.
Winter flower beds can be created under different conditions. Plants with which you have grown to this task can be found for sunny, bright locations as well as for partial shade and even full shadows. The only difference between such winter flower beds is what they will look like for the rest of the year. The difference is particularly visible in summer, since the appearance of shado w-loving plants is very different from the appearance of su n-loving garden stars.
When choosing a place for a winter flower garden, it should be noted that such a flower garden in the coldest and most boring time of the year revives the appearance of the garden and makes the skeletal planting softer, gives splendor and adds interesting textures. Therefore, try to choose a place in the foreground for flower beds that are decorated with a view to the coldest time of the year where you can admire dry curtains, panicles or seedlings. Such a flower garden is often created along a path or near a terrace, in a front yard or as a section of large flower beds, where classic ensembles create a wealth of bare areas in winter. In fact, the landscape with winter flower beds is “watered down”. But the most advantageous place for a winter flower garden is one that you can even admire on bad days from the window of the house.
Winter beds require a careful selection of the floors: they can only be planted on levels or slightly inclined areas without the risk of moisture or water jam with nutritious, loose, permeable, hig h-quality soil between clay and sandstone. Pay special attention to the wind protection: Even the best evergreen leaves lose their characteristic color and darken at windy locations, and dry panicles are easily broken by the wind. Always choose the warmest and most protected places in the garden for winter flower beds.
Maintaining a winter flower garden is simple and does not differ from other flower gardens, except that the mulch (preferably very decorative materials) and the implementation of all basic work with plants do not have to be forgotten in spring. As soon as the snow melts, such a flower garden is “cleaned” by removing dry leaves and inflorescences and shared the plants if necessary. Early feeding, loosening and updating the mulch enable you to supply the plants with everything that is necessary for normal development. Such flower beds are only irrigated with drought. But they have to cut the inflorescences carefully: the more panicles, baskets and ears remain on the plants, the better the flower bed looks in winter.
Sold in the winter flower garden. © Walters
Plants for winter splendor in flower beds
Winter flower beds are often called beds of beautifully dying plants – that is, those horticultural crops that, after drying, dying or transitioning to a dormant stage, can surprise with beautiful “dry” details. But such cultures deserve the title “non-standard” much more. They are universal and multifaceted, they have prepared their own surprise for each season, they have, albeit not the most catchy and obvious, but still inimitable beauty, which is worth a closer look.
Planting decorative shrubs or conifers on flower beds in winter, you can add “skeletal” accents to their design. Despite this, perennials should remain the main characters of any flower garden. And winter beds are no exception to this rule. At first glance, the number of perennials that look great in winter is very small. But it is worth taking a closer look at well-known garden crops, and they will reveal to you new talents and properties, thanks to which you can use them not only in spring, summer or autumn compositions.
Depending on which properties or plant parts come into their own in winter, all stars for winter beds are divided into several categories:
• Plants with evergreen or beautiful foliage in winter.
• Plants with light or showy seed pods or dry buds.
• Plants with light colored berries or fruits.
• Cultures with beautiful straight shoots that add lush structure to winter flower beds.
Plants for winter flower beds in well-lit areas
There are many perennials whose dry inflorescences or seedlings look amazing both under the snow and in the ice crust in winter. And you can choose plants with a different character, color and even texture. Favorites are ornamental grains, which are among the most beautiful perennials in every garden, even in winter. But herbs also have their competitors.
Dense spikelets of spikelet liatris ( Liatris spicata ) inflorescences not only look great in the middle of flowering. The plant, which for many has become the symbol of the prairie garden and American landscape design, can surprise even in winter. Narrow, yellowed, somewhat reminiscent of tarragon, in winter the leaves make the bushes lacy, and the many fallen dry spikes look like dense tufts of fur. Liatris is golden under the sun and ice, it seems to be a bright spot in the winter flower garden. This is dainty against a backdrop of giants, but a very lush accent that looks great in the foreground of winter flower beds.
In stark contrast to other needle-sharp grains, the fluffy inflorescences of sedge (Calamagrostis x acutiflora) show their beauty in a new way in winter landscapes. The effect of a living fountain hovering over any flower garden changes somewhat in winter, the reed grass has more in common with Derens and other shrubs with beautiful bark, adding graphic and weightlessness to the collection of winter perennials. Reed grass is a fairly large crop, a little over a meter to a meter and a half tall. It tolerates frosts down t o-34 degrees, its stems are frost-resistant, and the plant retains its beauty even in heavy snowfall. Reed grass already looks like a bunch of lush panicles, but you can additionally tie up shoots to add even more expressiveness to tall bushes. It is better to choose varietal reeds with more interesting colors and improved flowering.
Not only cereals are able to become the most important active star of the winter flower garden. The variety-Yarrow (Achillea) will also attract admiring looks, whose umbrellas with top structure in the design of winter flower beds are brought a new level (if you want the beauty of cereals to support the beauty of grain, choose the largest golden or easy Sorts). The suctions of up to 40 degrees withstand the maximum height in half a meter.
Liatris Colos (Liatris Spicata). © PHIPPS Conservatory
The Venie is an acute flower (Calamagrostis x acutiflora). © Sarah
Groce usually “Straubry Sedakshn” (Achillea Millefolium “Strawberry Seduction”). © Fafard
Don’t be lost in winter flower garden and Yucca (Yucca). Without such excellent winter hardness (optimal indicators are up to minus 29 degrees), they are increasingly finding in our gardens. In these plants, slimy, sharp, breathtakingly beautiful leaves in basal sockets not only keep the beauty for winter, but also through winter seed boxes that look very good in bizarre complex inflorescences on plants.
Excellent candidates for the winter blossom bed – Glenium (Helenium), in which after flowering on the branched shoots, dense “buttons” display with seeds. They easily take out frosts up t o-34, in the winter flower garden they play with Yarrow and look like their tip and “air” version.
The winter landscape and the Lofant will decorate, whose dazzling greens and dense stumps of inflorescences will not only decorate the garden in summer. Thick bushes and dry inflorescences of these largely underestimated perennials are not worse and under a blanket of snow. You will give every flower garden a striking texture.
Yukka in a winter flower garden. © Walters
Helenium (Helenium). © Gillian
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Lofend or multiple colleagues or agastach (agastache). © Mark Weetton
We are considered a rare ammonia stallaemontana Amsonia with its strikingly thick bushes, whose golden leaf parade is replaced in autumn by winter tip cushions that look incomparable under the snow.
One of the most important winter stars is Heicher (Heechera), whose frost resistance is sufficient to grow in the middle lane without protection (it tolerates frosts free). Beautiful blasphemic leaves of this several years of appearance in every season, but in winter there can be delicate flower beds volume and shine particularly spectacularly under the snow. The choice for winter flower beds is a variety with a bright yellow, orange or red leaf color, which is perfectly with the winter landscape in contrasting in the Winterbde area.
It is difficult to imagine that a winter flower garden without Echinacea purpose (Echinacea Purpurea) from different varieties from which you can collect a whole collection can be recorded from different varieties. Strong stems can even withstand strong snowfalls, and the convex “unevenness” of the nozzles that remain from the baskets of the inflorescences acquire a coal brown. The thorny Echinacea heads on flower beds just look fantastic, almost like artificial jewelry.
