By Leslie Cox
Unique to the Document
I arrived throughout an short article on how to have framework, color, and even bouquets in your back garden in winter season. Humph. Wanting out at our backyard garden all I can see are piles of snow.
Those to start with two snowfalls left 15.5 inches (40 cm) guiding in our place and the destructive temperatures that adopted turned the landscape into a sheet of ice. Not great for a back garden, particularly when the snow had laid a lot of reduced shrub branches on, or virtually on the floor. If you can even see what is taking place less than the snow, that is.
However, when I can see my 6-to-seven-foot-tall (1.8 – 2 m) aged-fashioned Weigela florida diminished to roughly a few toes (.9 m) with its snow load, I can envision what is occurring to my other shrubs.
John’s wonderful yellow tree peony, a gift from an aged neighbour’s yard just before she moved, is also hunched over, in spite of John knocking the snow off at the earliest prospect.
Turning my eyes from the snow yard back again to the write-up on wintertime elegance in the yard, I imagined what is the stage? But that is not to say we do not have some winter season delights in our put together landscape.
I have two Skimmia japonica shrubs, a male and woman, in the entrance, and this time of 12 months the woman is resplendent with its crimson berries. Incredibly substantially like holly berries but without the need of the spiny leaves. (Ok, I do know there are sleek-leaved holly versions, too!)
Whilst the berry display is a tiny lacking so far this winter season, I can appear ahead to the spring fragrance of the male skimmia flowers. A more effective, and delightful scent than the woman flowers in my viewpoint.
Bouquets I can take pleasure in in the winter are my hardy cyclamen coums. An very small plant that in some way manages to thrust its dainty, lilac-pink-colored blossoms higher than the snowline on ridiculously weak-looking stems. Goes to display, appearances do not always expose interior energy.
A different delightfully scented plant for the winter yard is Viburnum x bodnantense. (You may well know it less than its prevalent name: arrowwood.) We have the cultivar ‘Dawn’ in the back yard, which is purported to start out blooming in late autumn by means of into spring in the Pacific Northwest. But John has positioned his up in opposition to the cedar hedge, in deep shade, so it usually does not open its flowers right up until late December or early January, dependent on the temperature. (If you are looking for this viburnum in nurseries, it is often identified as ‘Pink Dawn’.)
Jasminum nudiflorum, or wintertime jasmine, was also described in the write-up. We do not have this plant but I imagine I should really contemplate it for my back garden as it is hardy to Zone 6. I know the fragrance is wonderful. (Another product on my 2023 plant want checklist.)
Wintersweet, or Chimonanthus praecox, was also mentioned but at 10 ft tall (3 m) with a multi-stemmed, fountain condition I concern it may well not deal with much of a snow load. Never head that it is borderline hardy for our yard zone. But the honey scent seems heavenly.
And then there are the Xmas roses… the hellebores. With all the amazing cultivars on the current market now, just one can develop a spectacular floral exhibit for their winter season landscape. I surely cherish ‘Ivory Prince’ and ‘Pink Frost’, presents from my mother many years ago and cherished reminders.
And I will cherish the memory of my dad, my childhood gardening trainer, now gone these 10 several years arrive Boxing Working day, as I gaze out at our wintertime backyard garden.
From our back garden to yours, John, Sadie and I would like you a festive holiday break period!
Leslie Cox co-owns Developing Concern Cottage Yard in Black Creek. Her website is www.duchessofdirt.ca.
Comox Valleygardening
