Best Winter Plants For Colour This Season
As we approach winter, you may be planning how to end this year in style. Your home will likely be full of colour and warmth this season, with various festivities and celebrations taking place, but what about your garden?
Winter is a dormant season for many plants, causing your garden to look dull and lacklustre. With trees bearing their leaves and perennials dying, your garden may not look its best right now. Thankfully, things do not have to stay this way, as there are plenty of winter plants you can incorporate to add colour and interest, even as other landscapes begin to fade.
Health Landscapes & Garden Design is a premier landscaping company, offering outdoor care all year round. We understand what it takes to maintain a thriving garden all year round, and are using this experience to recommend the best winter plants for colour this season.
In this post, we will share some of the best winter plants to add colour, style, and structure to your garden so you can see the end of the year off right.
The Benefits Of Winter Plants: Why Add Colour To Your Garden This Season
Creating a colourful garden is a goal for many people at all points in the year, but it becomes particularly popular during the winter. With the grey and cold weather ahead, adding some colour to your winter garden can offer a range of benefits, such as:
Brighten Dark Days
Winter can be a tough time of year for many people due to the shorter days and cold temperatures. Adding winter plants to your garden will brighten up your daily routines, giving you access to vibrancy and warmth from the comfort of your own home.
While the rest of the landscapes around you fade, your garden will stand out like a bright beacon of hope with winter plants offering colour, style and structure.
Extend Gardening Season
Although you may have less work to do in the winter, gardening does not have to come to a complete stop. For many people, gardening is a passion and a way to do something positive for their health and wellbeing. This can continue, and even be enhanced, by incorporating winter plants in your garden.
Winter plants will continue to need support through pruning, watering and fertilising, ensuring there is always something to do in your garden this season. If you enjoy gardening and want to continue this venture, winter plants are essential at this time.
Support Wildlife
While we may not be spending as much time outdoors during the winter, plenty of other creatures still do. With winter plants, your garden can become a supportive environment for local wildlife, including birds, insects and hedgehogs.
Winter plants can provide food and shelter for wildlife, helping them thrive this winter and ensuring your garden is full of life as the season progresses.
Top Winter Plants For Colour And Style This Season
To create a winter garden that remains colourful and engaging, you need to incorporate a variety of plants and flowers. Although many plants enter their dormant season during the winter, this does not apply to all.
There are several incredible winter planting options to add colour to your garden design this season, such as:
Evergreen Shrubs And Foliage
Evergreen shrubs and plants are a staple of year-round gardens because they keep their leaves throughout the seasons. These winter plants remain a focal point within your garden design all year round, and can provide a much-needed pop of colour during the winter.
To learn more about garden design and how to create your own attractive outdoor space all year round, see our Ultimate Guide to Garden Design: Concepts, Costs, and Construction
Some of the best evergreen winter plants for your garden include:
- Holly: With their glossy green leaves and bright red berries, holly is a classic symbol of the winter celebrations and can add some colour to your garden throughout the year.
- Boxwood: Ideal for traditional cottage gardens, these tidy hedges provide structure and screening, keeping your garden neat and private all year round. Another way to keep your garden private throughout the year, see our post on Pleached Tree Screens.
- Heuchera Varieties: These shrubs can produce foliage in various shades, including burgundy, lime, and silver tones, to add unique pops of colour to your garden throughout the winter. These are a great alternative winter plant for gardens seeking colour and structure.
Winter-Flowering Plants
Some winter plants continue to produce flowers even in the height of the season. These are wonderful additions to your borders, flower beds, and containers to prolong the appeal of your landscape.
Various flowers can thrive in cold conditions, such as:
- Hellebores: Also known as Christmas Roses, these winter plants are a wonderful statement for your garden this season. They produce elegant blooms from December to March, adding colour to your garden and allowing you to celebrate the season in style.
- Winter Jasmine: These winter plants produce bright yellow flowers, which stand out in cold winter gardens. With the bare stems, these plants are a focal point within your winter garden and offer pops of colour to fences, pergolas and containers.
- Camellia japonica: This winter plant offers a two-fold visual appeal through their glossy leaves and stunning blooms in pinks and reds, which continue throughout the cold weather.
Snowdrops (Galanthus): These early bloomers will provide the first hint of spring under frost with their drooping, white flower heads.
Colourful Bark, Berries And Stems
These plants offer a unique form of winter colour. Unlike other winter plants, the colour of these shrubs and flowers comes from the bark, berries and stems that remain in winter.
They can provide unexpected colour when your garden needs it most and will bloom later in the year, allowing you to experience vibrancy throughout the seasons.
- Dogwood: These are some of the most interesting winter plants due to their vivid red stems, which remain a focal point in your garden all year round. Once the leaves and flowers have fallen, these stems remain, providing colour and structure in your garden.
- Silver Birch: The striking white bark of these trees is a year-round focal point, but becomes even more prominent during the winter when the leaves have fallen.
- Mahonia x media ‘Charity’: This is a truly stunning winter plant that offers two vivid shades, based on the seasons. First, it produces bright yellow flowers, which are followed by blue berries in the winter, making it a vibrant statement in your planting spaces and containers throughout the year.
Ornamental Grasses And Texture
Ornamental grasses are a great addition to modern garden designs and can provide year-round interest in your garden. This has been a popular trend for a few years now, as we explore in our post on The Top Garden Design Trends.
Combined with flowers and shrubs, ornamental grasses can add depth to your planting displays. With their tall stems and varying shades, these winter plants add colour and movement to your garden all year round, as well as offering essential shelter to wildlife this season.
- Miscanthus sinensis: The feathery plumes of these winter plants not only look attractive and sway in the wind, but also catch frost beautifully, creating stunning seasonal displays throughout the winter.
- Carex ‘Everest’: The variegated leaves provide a soft winter look and have a dramatic structure that can look great in containers, hanging baskets and flower beds.
- Festuca glauca: The icy blue tones of these winter plants complement evergreens and shrubs, adding unique structure to your garden this season through their unexpected pop of colour.
Conclusion
Winter does not have to be a grey and drab season for your garden, despite the fact that many plants fade at this time of the year. Various winter plants can add colour and structure to your garden, enhancing the visual appeal of your space throughout the year.
Including winter-flowering plants, evergreen shrubs, and ornamental grasses can create diverse planting displays that offer colour throughout the year. If you are looking to create a stunning garden that withstands the test of time and brightens up your winter days, Heath Landscapes & Garden Design is here to help.
Our team of landscape gardeners provide professional services all year round and will work with you to achieve your dream outdoor space.
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To learn more about our services or to request a quote, please contact the team today.
FAQs
How can I make my garden colourful in the winter?
Combining various winter plants is the best way to add colour to your garden this season. For example, combine evergreen shrubs for structure with winter-flowering plants or colourful stems like dogwood, and berry-producing shrubs such as holly. For additional colour and interest, consider textured ornamental grasses and use outdoor lighting to highlight key areas.
What plants bloom during winter?
Several hardy plants will continue to bloom, even in cold weather, such as hellebores, winter jasmine, snowdrops, and camellias.
Are winter plants hard to care for?
Not at all, as most winter plants are low-maintenance and frost-hardy. Once established, they need minimal watering and only light pruning in spring.
