Winter gardening

Winter gardening is officially from November 1st to March 31st, although the length of your winter season may be more or less depending on your location. Most of us give up gardening during these months, resigning ourselves to tending to our indoor plants and pouring over gardening magazines and catalogues while dreaming about the first warm day when we can look out the window and find something interesting going on in our gardens. However, it doesn’t have to be this way. Giving consideration to creating interest and activity in your garden during the winter months is at the forefront of landscaping discussions these days.

But don’t think that because it is spring, this is not a topic to be thinking about. Spring is definitely the right time of year to begin enhancing your winter garden. By planting in spring, you give your plants time to begin to get established before their first winter “show”. Also, by just finishing the winter season, you have a much clearer picture in your mind of what areas to enhance.

In my experience, giving consideration to the following six areas will set you well on your way to having a garden which invites you to look out the window or perhaps stroll through periodically during those long winter months:

• color (e.g. stem color, flower color, berries, and of course, evergreen shrubs and trees)
• texture (e.g. ornamental grasses, textures of bark)
• movement (e.g. wind through grasses, ornaments that have movement, water)
• containers (e.g. potting containers with winter hardy plants and moving them to barren areas)
• accents (interesting garden accents)
• hardscapes (e.g. terraces, fencing, trellises)
  

To help you explore this interesting facet of gardening further, we have included a list of websites which have information on the topic. The first link on the page is also to a list of plants we have found to have winter interest.

A link to interesting winter plants...

Below are links to sites with great information about winter gardening:

How to improve your winter garden - a selection of the plants to improve the winter displays in your garden - http://www.crocus.co.uk/feature/frostshop/?affiliate=tiscali

http://www.springvalleyroses.com/ - Spring Valley Roses - specializes in winter hardy roses.

Winter vegetable gardens - http://www.rainyside.com/edibles/winter_veggies.html

“Private garden in Nottinghamshire
England. February, 2002”

Pond winterising tips - http://www.webbsonline.com/wintertips.html - includes winter care for water lilies

About.com - Winter gardening - http://gardening.about.com/cs/msub115/

Fall and Winter gardening checklist - http://gardening.about.com/library/weekly/aa110599.htm

It's not dead, it's just sleeping - http://gardening.about.com/library/weekly/aa101998.htm

The three P's of winter gardening - http://www.livinghome.com/news/gardens/104-1.html

Winter Gardening Tips by Vern Grubinger - http://www.ruralvermont.com/vermontweathervane/issues/winter/97012/winter_tips.shtml

A forum for winter gardening questions - http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/winter/

If you can find your way around this site, there are some beautiful pictures of winter flowering plants: http://www.eskimo.com/~enumclaw/Tips/wintergardening.html
The more you look and explore this site, the more cool stuff you find.