Creating Winter Interest

Planting evergreens is a simple way to add year-round color and texture to the landscape. For added visual interest, combine varieties with contrasting foliage colors, textures, and shapes. Mixing deep greens, blue-greens, and golden hues along with upright, rounded, and spreading growth habits creates even more dimension in the garden, especially during winter.

Evergreens to Consider:

• Boxwood
• Chamaecyparis (false cypress trees & shrubs)
• Juniper Trees & Shrubs
• Spruce (Alberta, Colorado, Blue, Norway, etc.)
• Rhododendron

As temperatures fall and leaves trop, the unique colors and textures of tree and shrub bark is on full display in the landscape. From vibrant hues to exfoliating bark, these unique traits add beautiful contrast and character to the winter landscape.

• Birch — Betula (salmon-cream, papery)
• Dogwood — Cornus (red & yellow twig shrub types)
• Ninebark — Physocarpus (burgundy & tan, peeling bark)
• Hydrangea — (dried panicle blooms)
• Weeping Spruce — Picea

Believe it or not, there are some perennials that provide great winter interest in the landscape. Whether it’s for their dried blooms, seeds for the birds or evergreen foliage, plant these perennials for great winter interest.

• Lenten Rose — Helleborus (late winter blooms & evergreen foliage)
• Coneflowers — Echinacea (seeds for birds)
• Stonecrop — Sedum (dried flowers & form)
• Ornamental Grasses (dried foliage & plumes for texture)