Whether you choose to use plants or décor, there are many ways to design your garden to have winter interest. If you design your garden correctly, no matter snow or sun, your winter garden will always be looking beautiful.
Designing a Winter Garden: Structures
Using structures can help attract the eye to specific areas of your garden. There are many different types of structures to choose from, but be wary that having too many pieces in your garden will lead to an overcrowded rather than Zen feeling.
- Fountains (even when deactivated) and bird baths are classic
- Ponds, frozen or not, can reflect your garden and the winter sun
- Statues and pagodas add a more vertical feel to the garden
- Metal art and yard art can easily be added according to the gardener’s taste
Designing a Winter Garden: Ground Cover
While structures can add a unique sort of interest to your winter garden, it’s also very easy to include plants into your design. Some of the plants that are best to use to decorate your winter garden are even perfect for using year-round!
- Plant ornamental grass; the graceful motion of these longer grasses either in summer or winter will give your other plants a lovely background to grow by
- Add evergreen shrubs that will provide a stark green contrast to the rest of your winter landscape
- Adding seed heads and pods can add some interest to your garden, as well as attract beautiful birds
- Choose winter-hardy plants with berries or fruit, like blueberry bushes, to add splashes of color to your garden
Designing a Winter Garden: Adding Trees
Whether you plant trees for their leaf color or for their bark, you can guarantee you will be adding interest to the design of your winter garden.
- Evergreen trees are classics for a winter garden; they will stand out beautifully during winter, and blend into the background during summer
- For trees with interesting limbs, consider the Contorted Philbert, with twisted limbs, or the Japanese Pagoda Tree, which holds its fruit on long “chains” that will last until springtime
- Trees like the Paperbark Maple, Lacebark Elm, or White River Birch have bark that peel back to reveal a collage of colors
Designing a Winter Garden: Lasting Flowers
These hardy blooms will bring color and beauty to your winter garden.
- Winter pansies come in a large variety of colors, and will look great inside or outside
- For people who have less harsh of winters, heather plants are a pretty and useful addition to a winter and summer garden; a heather cover will aid in preventing weeds
- Hydrangeas, even if they are dormant, can look like beautiful snowflakes in winter
- Flowers like sedum, the purple cone flower, and sunflowers can be used to decorate your garden wherever you see fit
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