By Pat Dray
The Garden Spot
Pat Dray.
Now that most of the garden has gone dormant, I like to take the time to admire what I consider the winter beauties.
It’s a challenge for those of us in New England to keep color and visual interest in the winter garden after all the fall color is gone, but the season doesn’t have to be a time of a colorless landscapes. Some of my favorites for the winter garden are winterberry, red twigged dogwoods and witch hazel. Planting these in the garden along with any perennial grasses will give your garden color and interest until the early spring flowering bulbs pop up.
You’ve probably noticed bare-branched shrubs with bright red berries. These are a type of holly called winterberry or Ilex verticillata. Winterberry is a deciduous holly shrub that is native to the eastern U.S. and produces bright red berries that last through the entire winter. Not only do the bright berries add important color to winter landscapes, but they also attract birds that love to eat them. Remember, this is a native shrub, so it supports the insect and pollinator ecosystem in our area. Winterberry is easy to grow and remains compact. It’s a dioecious plant, which means there are separate male and female plants, so you should mass several females with at least one male together to give a pop of color in the garden.
Another winter favorite is the red twigged dogwood shrub, not to be confused with a dogwood tree. Although both are in the plant genus Cornus, the shrub will never grow into a tree. It will, however, grow quite tall and wide if you don’t prune it annually. Its branches are green while there is foliage and turn bright red after the leaves drop. Like the winterberry, it has berries in the fall which the birds love to eat. It will do well in wet areas and likes to be cut back in the spring, removing any branches that did not turn the bright red color. I like to cut some of the branches around the winter holidays to add drama in floral designs. It’s a real standout against the snow.
Witch hazel is another great choice in the garden. The name may be familiar to you since they have been used for centuries for medicinal purposes, such as treating insect bites and soothing burns. One of the native varieties is Hamamelis virginiana, which has rust-colored flowers in October and November. A later blooming native is Hamamelis vernalis, which will bloom bright yellow in December or January. Both of these natives have a strong pleasing scent that will attract pollinators. They are pretty much care-free shrubs that just need a sunny location. As with the red twigged dogwood, they can grow quite large, so mange them with a little spring pruning.
Although it’s a little late for planting these beauties to enjoy this winter, plan for them to go into the garden as a backdrop to your lower growing plants in the spring and enjoy the full beauty of them next winter.
If you’d like to learn more about design and horticulture, consider joining a garden club. The Garden Club of Orange will be celebrating its ninetieth year in 2020. We just keep on growing.