Henny Penny Farmette

A winter garden doesn’t have to be drab. You can create beauty during the bleakest time of the year with winter perennials, ornamental grasses, shrubs with berries, trees that provide interesting bark, and perennial flowers. Put plants in during autumn for enjoyment throughout the short, dark days ahead.

BULBS

Buy bags of bulbs now and plant them for a late winter/early spring bloom. For example, crocus, daffodil, grape hyacinth, Dutchman breeches, and tulip bulbs are available in garden centers now. You’ll find bulbs in nurseries prepackaged in bags or piled high in baskets or barrels with scoops and paper bags for self service.

The rhizome of Siberian Iris sends tall shoots of green foliage and then produces blooms in a range of colors from white to yellow and purple. Dutch and Spanish iris are best planted in the fall. Peonies are also a good option. The peony foliage dies back in winter but the plant emerges in late winter or early spring and rewards with gorgeous blooms. Peonies come in a variety of colors, not just pink and rose. Check them out.

SHRUBS

Winter Jasmine (yellow blooms), witch hazel, pussy willows, sweet box (honey-scented flowers), and ornamental red twig dogwood or Siberian dogwood (stunning red stems and branches) make excellent choices for a winter garden. Winter heath are low-growing plants with foliage of soft yellow, bronze, gold, and pale green. The flowers are bell shaped or tubular in a range of colors, including magenta, white, pink, and red-purple. The plant will even bloom under the snow.

PERENNIALS

Cyclamen, pansy, viola, primrose,hellebore, echinacea, coral bells, heliopsis (looks similar to sunflower), and the “Moonbeam” coreopsis are just a few of the many colorful perennials available for winter color. Lenten rose often blooms around the time of Lent but is also called Christmas rose because it can bloom as early as December in warmer climates.

VINES

Consider the beauty of flowering vines in the winter garden. Self-climbing hydrangea can scale an ugly wall and turn it into a thing of beauty. Pyracantha is valued for it’s hardiness as well as green foliage and abundant red-orange berries in winter. Honeysuckle and flowering jasmine feature lots of small and heavily scented flowers. Wisteria looks stunning draped over a pergola or trellis where its flowers form stunning bracts of color in late winter or early spring. Cape honeysuckle, a broad leaf evergreen vine, produces blazing orange blooms against dark green leaves. It’s often grown as a shrub.

TREES

Holly is the classic evergreen tree for the winter garden, creating interest with dazzling red berries amid dark green foliage. Sango Kaku is a small Japanese maple that displays stunning red bark on its trunk in winter. The white birch is another tree that adds interest in a barren winter garden. Plant one to make a statement or group three together to create a focal point. There’s no missing the drama of a redbud tree in full bloom. These gorgeous trees produce flowers before leaves in early March. They make a showy display in any landscape, whether field, farm, or garden.

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If you enjoy reading about country living topics, you might also like my Henny Penny Farmette series of cozy mysteries, available online and wherever books are sold. The three novels in the series are: BEELINE TO MURDER, THE MURDER OF A QUEEN BEE, and A HIVE OF HOMICIDES.