Don’t let the winter blues (greys?) get you down once holiday decorations have been put away for the season. With a little planning, your winter landscape can become a fairy tale filled with color and visual interest. In this post you’ll find our tips for finding color for the winter at a garden nursery near me in Bergen County and Ulster County, NY, areas.
Related: WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR AT A GARDEN NURSERY NEAR ME THIS FALL IN ROCKLAND COUNTY NJ
Even if you’re not outdoors much in winter, just taking a look out the kitchen window should make you smile when your landscape is filled with plants that brighten your day with color, texture, fruit, and even flowers.
1. Evergreen Trees and Shrubs
Evergreen trees and shrubs are available in many varieties, each with their unique colors and characteristics. From blue spruces to golden-hued cypress, boxwoods to holly, soft needled fir trees to lofty pines, your landscape can always have color - even if it’s subtle shades of green - when you plant evergreen trees and shrubs. As a bonus, broad evergreens such as spruces and cypress as well as tall evergreen hedges will serve as excellent windbreaks to keep your landscape feeling less “Siberian” in winter.
2. Trees and Shrubs with Interesting Bark
Some trees and shrubs have truly beautiful bark. Look for a mix of interesting textures and colors. Some great examples include maple, cherry, ironwood, dogwood, oak, and ninebark tree. The white and black bark of quaking aspen and red and white birches offers a subtle yet fascinating contrast to snowy landscapes (if you’re a photographer, you will want to plant aspen and birch for your own backyard monochromatic photo opportunities).
3. Shrubs with Berries
Shrubs and trees that bear berries are essential additions to a winter landscape. Holly, barberry, dogwood, winterberry, crabapple, chokecherry, and cranberry bush are cold-hardy fruit-bearing trees and shrubs that will attract birds and wildlife, and visually brighten your landscape with delightful pops of color.
4. Late- and Early-Blooming Flowers
Late-blooming flowers like asters and chrysanthemums are often still showing off their colors when the first snow flies. And, spring will be here before you know it… so celebrate the season of rebirth with early-season flowers like crocuses, daffodils, and grape hyacinths.
5. Winter-Hardy Ground Covers
When the ground isn’t covered in snow, let ground covers brighten your day as they line walkways or peek out from between boulders in a rock garden. Add color to a landscape with ground covers including creeping thyme, bearberry, sedums, creeping juniper, partridgeberry, wall germander, lilyturf, candytuft, and lowbush blueberry.
6. Year-Round Edible Delights
Kale, spinach, and chard are leafy plants that are extremely cold-hardy, and actually taste even better once they’ve had a few frosty nights. Beets, carrots, and onions are three plants that can survive cold very well. You’ll need to make sure your edible garden is protected from wind and deep freezes, and that plants have a good covering of mulch, but you can enjoy nature’s bounty throughout winter.
7. Early-Flowering Shrubs
Shrubs often play second fiddle to the majesty of trees and the glory of flowers. But, they are the unsung heroes of winter! Surprisingly, quite few shrubs actually bloom in late winter. These include Witch Hazel (which can bloom as early as January into March); Viburnum; Sweet Bay or Sweet Box; Winter Jasmine; and Winter Heath.
Our experts are standing by to offer guidance on the best selection of plants for a cheerful winter landscape that will beat the winter blahs!
