Top garden selections for December's outdoor blooms, curated by expert gardeners
Winter Gardens: A Palette of Colour and Structure
As the days grow shorter and the temperatures drop, gardens can often lose their vibrancy. However, with careful planning and the right selection of plants, it's possible to maintain a garden that bursts with colour and structure even in December.
One of the key options for winter gardens is ornamental trees with interesting bark. Trees such as Dogwood, Paper birch, Japanese maple, River birch, Seven-son flower, Manchurian fir, and Lacebark pine add visual interest even when leaves have fallen. These trees, with their colourful or textured bark, provide a striking backdrop to the winter landscape.
Evergreen trees also play a crucial role in winter gardens. Trees like White spruce, Balsam fir, Black spruce, Western redcedar, Douglas fir, and Eastern white pine maintain their green foliage throughout winter, providing both structure and colour against snow.
Flowering shrubs are another essential component of winter gardens. Camellia, for instance, blooms from late winter through early summer with rose-like flowers and glossy dark leaves that add year-round sophistication. Forsythia, on the other hand, bursts into electric yellow blooms in late winter, creating bright colour and good privacy screens.
Spirea shrubs offer extended colour beyond the blooming season. With cascading white, pink, or red flowers and colourful foliage in gold, bronze, or burgundy, they work well for hedges or small spaces.
For structure accompanied by aromatic foliage and subtle colour, Mojave sage is a semi-evergreen sub-shrub with silvery-green leaves and dense mauve-purple bracts that provide winter interest, especially in dry, full sun conditions.
Among the standout plants for winter gardens are 'Picea orientalis', a dwarf evergreen conifer that produces little vignettes of sumptuous, white flowers, each blossom centred with a cluster of golden stamens. Another is 'Hamamelis x intermedia 'Jelena', a scented witch hazel that can come into flower as early as December, producing dainty, ribbon-petaled flowers of yellow suffused with burnt orange.
'Hippeastrum Grand Diva', a popular amaryllis, needs heat to initiate growth and should be kept moist until roots form and the flower stem emerges. Once grown, it produces huge, vivid-red, funnel-shaped flowers.
For those seeking a plant that offers winter interest, Salix irrorata is a willow with blue-white stems and soft, tactile catkins that appear before the foliage emerges in the spring. Panicum virgatum 'Kupferhirse' is a grass that offers winter interest with exquisite tones as the foliage begins to dry and become brittle.
Perennial honesty, Lunaria rediviva, is another winter gem. Its elliptical seedheads appear in December and resemble tiny pieces of hanging tracing paper.
Stachyurus praecox var. matsuzakii 'Issai' is a deciduous shrub with subtle caramel tones in its autumn foliage that lasts into December. Heuchera sanguinea 'Geisha's Fan' is a cultivar with purple-and-grey marbled foliage that persists well into the winter.
Lastly, Iris unguicularis 'Mary Barnard' is a species of December flowering iris that is tolerant of poor and sun-baked positions.
By choosing a mix of these plants adapted to your hardiness zone and garden conditions, you can ensure your winter garden remains vibrant and visually appealing throughout the season.
- Despite the approaching winter, gardens can still exhibit a palette of colour and structure, thanks to well-planned planting ideas.
- Ornamental trees with unique bark, such as Dogwood or Lacebark pine, contribute to the winter landscape's visual interest even with fallen leaves.
- Evergreen trees like White spruce and Eastern white pine maintain their green foliage during winter, providing both colour and structure against snow.
- Flowering shrubs like Camellia and Forsythia are essential components of winter gardens, adding either year-round sophistication or bright winter blooms.
- Mojave sage offers structure, silvery-green leaves, and mauve-purple bracts for winter interest, particularly in dry, full sun conditions.
- Various plants, such as 'Picea orientalis', 'Hamamelis x intermedia 'Jelena', and 'Iris unguicularis' 'Mary Barnard', offer winter interest, making your garden an attractive part of your lifestyle, fashion-and-beauty, home-and-garden, food-and-drink, travel, and entertainment preferences.
