My Top 11 Plants For The Winter Garden

Winter structure is always an important thing to factor into any good planting design to avoid there being no interest from plants during the winter months so let’s take a look at the top plants to include for winter interest.

COTONEASTER

These are great for giving the wildlife lots of food through the winter months with their reliable crops of juicy red berries, there’s many upright varieties and also some varieties which will trail over a wall and also provide great ground cover, Cotoneaster ‘Coral Beauty’ being one of my groundcover favourites.

 

HELLEBORES

One of my favourite plants and they are so easy to grow! The Christmas Rose has been flowering for the last few weeks and then we have the Lenten Roses to look forward to, they love a position underneath trees to shelter them from the summer sun and they flower their socks off through winter and into spring.

 

SARCOCOCCA

Commonly known as Winter Box it is one of the most sweetly scented plants in the garden, bearing masses of small green leaves it then has clusters of white flowers appear in later winter which bear the most delightful perfume. Great for sun or shade, position somewhere near to the house so you can appreciate its beautiful smell.

 

TOPIARY BALLS

If you fill a garden with large evergreen shrubs it can look the same all year round, it’s good to embrace the seasons and if your garden is small then you need to think cleverly! Topiary balls not only look great in pots and containers but you can also repeat them along the front edge of a border to give continuity and lead the eye along your planting, then in the spring when the sea of Alliums appear with their pom pom flowers the synergy between the two is striking! You also trim them twice per year to keep them nice and neat and feed in March and September with topiary feed to keep them nice and green.

 

WINTER JASMINE

Known as Jasminum nudiflorum with its bright green stems covered in yellow fragrant flowers in the late winter months. It’s easy to grow but do give it some space, it’s not a plant for a small garden but will be happy on a larger wall.

 

DOGWOODS

Belonging to the Cornus family these plants are well known for their rich fiery stem colour. With red, orange, yellow or black stems they magically change once their leaves fall in October. Give them a hard prune at the end of March every couple of years to help encourage the new coloured stems, they are also tolerant of a wet position in the garden so perfect for poorly drained clay soil.

 

HOLLY BUSHES

These will give you not only berries but there’s also many varieties with colourful variegated foliage. The male varieties bear the flowers and the female varieties then bear berries, don’t be fooled by the names though as Golden King is a strong growing female variety with golden variegated leaves! They are good in sun or shade and great for trimming in the winter months to decorate the house with.

 

SKIMMIAS

One of my favourite compact evergreens with either male varieties forming clusters of attractive buds forming through the winter months, and then the female varieties are laden with juicy red or white berries. They are acid lovers so mix in ericaceous soil when you plant and they are great in the borders but also perfect for pots either side of the door with their very Christmassy colours.

 

WINTER HEATHERS

Ericas are so easy to grow and also really rewarding in the amount of flower they give, they are low growing and bear masses of white, pink or red flowers through the winter months. They just give them a light trim afterwards to help promote lots of bushy new growth.

 

HEUCHERAS

Great for pots and containers and they’re also happy in shady or sunny parts of the garden. Their evergreen rosettes of leaves look cheery all year round, then simply give them a haircut in the spring before their new growth appears. The combination of clashing colours looks great against other plants like Dogwoods and Skimmias.

 

HAMAMELIS

These are a delightful group of shrubs which flower in the depths of the Winter. Their tiny clusters of frilly flowers bear the most amazing zesty fragrance of oranges and lemons and they come in red, yellow and orange. Their leaves are also the same colour in the autumn before they fall.

Anyway happy gardening and it’s such a wonderful time of year with the spring months being just around the corner, so much to look forward to and with the days getting longer it’s the perfect time of year to also begin planning for the seasons which lie ahead…

Holden Clough Nurseries
Holden, Bolton-by-Bowland
Lancashire BB7 4PF 01200 447615
holdencloughnursery.com