KUNC Commentators
(2008-12-17)
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FORT COLLINS, CO
(KUNC) -
The Winter Garden
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The shortest day of the year is here. As it passes, every winter day gets longer but its still winter. All of the garden trappings - color, texture, growth habit, and fruit - are part of a winter garden too.
Winter garden color is accentuated in plant bark. Red or yellow-twig dogwood against a backdrop of snow. Bronze, peeling bark of Amur chokecherry above a bed of evergreen. In moist soil conditions or in areas that get reliable winter water is the white bark of eastern river birch and cutleaf weeping birch. New Mexican privet shows off with blond bark in dry, xeric gardens. If you can find it, the showy, patchy bark of Lacebark pine is eye-catching.
The queens of winter texture are the ornamental grasses. Their full crowns of seed blow in winter winds. Their skirts of leaves shake and shimmer in the low winter light. Low grasses like Fescue offer a border accent. Fountain grass, feather reed grass and hardy pampas grass are taller, waving specimens.
One of my favorite winter plants is Russian hawthorn. It can be a thorny, gnarly, low-headed plant. But its gnarliness becomes character as it grows older. Russian hawthorn thorns are a pain to work around. But its spring flowers, fall fruit and winter silhouette make it worth the pain.
Another striking growth habit is a curtain. A weeping plant's central leader is staked upright to eight or ten feet. Then the plant is allowed to weep creating a curtain effect. For an evergreen curtain try training a weeping Norway spruce. Lorberg Peashrub is a curtain forming, weeping deciduous tree.
Fruit catches the eye and feeds the birds during the winter. Cranberry cotoneaster is a low growing, spreading shrub with bright red winter fruit. A couple crabapples with fruit that hangs on into the winter are red fruited Adams crab or the russet fruit of Red Baron crabapple.
Evergreens are a winter accent. If you're tired of junipers try a spruce or pine. Mesa Verde spruce grows less than a foot tall but spreads five or six feet wide. Mesa Verde takes hot south exposures. Creeping Scotch pine is also a tough alternative to junipers. Albyn's Prostrate is a vigorous variety that takes a wide range of soil, sun and moisture.
Look for winter gardens on your neighborhood walks. Then plan you winter garden on one of these long winter nights.
tomthrogmorton@mywdo.com
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