Un-Drabbing our Winter Landscapes

Crisp frosty mornings and bright sunny days really encourage a holiday mood, but our gardens appear anything but festive. With bald tree branches and bare, mulched flowerbeds our landscapes are visually sparse. Such drab surroundings do not make an attractive setting for welcoming guests to Thanksgiving feasts and Christmas parties. What to do?

Well, I call this the decorating season for the garden. Strategically placed containers filled with the right mix of winter plants will dress up any frost decimated garden. Colorful containers are visually stimulating whether on decks, lining paved surfaces, or right in the middle of the landscape. I really like to use them as plant-filled garden art in dormant flowerbeds or perennial borders. Their color draws the eye, they physically elevate plants for better display, and they add a touch of style that family, neighbors, and holiday guests always seem to enjoy.

Container plants are just the ticket through the holidays. The secret is in choosing just the right container and plant combinations that will deliver an eye-catching statement.

Plastic planters will last through the coming months, but eventually the sun causes them to become brittle and crack easily. Stay away from rustic looking, but short-lived Mexican pots. Their rustic appearance, the result of very poor clay that has been hardened in an open fire pit, soon flake off any textured design. Italian or German terra-cotta pots are made from better quality clay, but these pots will flake, crack, or peel and have to be replaced after limited use. Fiberglass and metal containers with their ornate designs and classic garden styles stand up to any weather but are very expensive.

My favorite containers are brightly glazed pots. A lot of pot for the money, they are made of excellent quality clay and all are kiln dried for a long life of service. These pots have the thickness to withstand temperature extremes and have the visual appeal proportionate to our mountain landscapes. Glazed containers get my thumbs up for beauty, style, and durability.

Containers need specific plants to fill design requirements of height, body, and filler. Rosemary, one of the first plants to bloom each year, is tall, fragrant, and evergreen. Against a south-facing wall it can bloom as early as January and February. Mediterranean pink heath has equally beautiful foliage with rosy lavender flowers that last through early spring. Because of its mounding evergreen habit it does well in a container without any other plants. By itself in a white or blood red container it is a knockout.

The Yedda Hawthorn is the richest of the dwarf evergreen plants. It is exceptionally hardy and its dark lustrous foliage is outstanding. It will last for years whether it winters in a container on the patio or spends its summers planted in a bed in blistering hot sun. Its vivid white flowers are redolently fragrant in spring, but pair it with a few royal purple pansies and you have a winter sign of welcome at your front door.

Living Christmas trees are popular this time of year, but one seems to steal center stage. The ‘blue wonder dwarf Alberta spruce’, with its striking blue foliage, is unbeatable in containers framing a doorway. Decorated with white lights it makes for a Christmas to remember.
Plant inventories on display at garden centers this time of year feature foliage plants, traditional evergreens, and those few plants with winter blooms. Outdoor plants that deliver excellent survivability and season-long color are pansies, snapdragons, dusty miller, and kale. These all thrive in cold weather and grow well in containers, raised beds, or in the ground.

This week I created a stunning new container for my own landscape, for a dead spot in a flowerbed that needed a lift. I used a large cobalt blue container and planted a single Gilt-edged Silverberry’ in the middle. Gilt-edged means that every evergreen leaf is bordered in a golden yellow. It is especially striking against the bright blue container and is providing a colorful addition to our winter garden. This new living floral arrangement will grow for years in its new home.

Today this column’s message is that we don’t have to live with an uninviting home during our drab winter months. Even a little decorating goes a long way and it doesn’t have to cost much. For the price of a cut floral arrangement we can have a centerpiece just outside the front door that will thrive and look great for years to come.

Don’t forget my free gardening classes, held at 9:30 each Saturday morning. This Saturday, November 21st, learn the best “Winter Care for Trees & Shrubs”, and November 28th the class is “Winter Plants that Shine”. Take a break from the holiday hustle to learn some practical, timely, local landscape tips. The entire class schedule is available at wattersonline.com.

Until next week, I'll see you at the garden center, or in the Christmas shop