Winter Garden
A garden designed to provide visual interest during the coldest months through structural elements, evergreens, colorful stems, and winter-blooming plants. Winter gardens challenge the notion that gardens must be dormant in the cold season, instead celebrating the unique beauty of the winter landscape through thoughtful plant selection and design that ensures the garden remains engaging even when many plants are at rest.
Key Features
Structural Framework
Strong architectural elements like arbors, trellises, and sculptural features that maintain visual interest when herbaceous plants have died back, creating a compelling skeleton for the winter garden.
Evergreen Backbone
Strategic use of conifers and broadleaf evergreens in various forms, textures, and shades of green to provide permanent structure and color throughout the winter months.
Ornamental Bark
Trees and shrubs selected for their distinctive bark characteristics—exfoliating, colorful, or textured—that become more prominent and appreciated in the winter landscape.
Winter Berries
Plants that hold their fruit into winter, providing splashes of red, orange, purple, or white berries that add color to the garden and attract birds during the cold season.
Cold-Season Bloomers
Incorporation of plants that flower during winter months, such as witch hazel, winter jasmine, hellebores, and early bulbs that offer surprising color when most gardens are dormant.
Ornamental Grasses
Retention of dried grass plumes and seedheads through winter that provide movement, sound, and visual interest, especially when backlit by low winter sun or dusted with frost and snow.
Design Variations
Formal Winter Garden
Structured design with geometric patterns defined by clipped evergreen hedges, topiary, and symmetrical arrangements that look particularly striking when outlined by snow or frost.
Naturalistic Winter Landscape
Informal approach that mimics winter's beauty in nature with native grasses, seedheads left standing, and plants arranged in drifts that catch snow and create dramatic silhouettes.
Winter Color Garden
Focus on plants with vibrant winter characteristics like red-twig dogwoods, yellow willow stems, and colorful conifers arranged to create a palette that brightens the winter landscape.
Winter Wildlife Garden
Designed to support birds and other wildlife during the challenging winter months with food sources from berries and seedheads, shelter from evergreens, and protection from harsh elements.