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| Luckily we had a bit of snow today so this photo of the holly berries looks extra festive. |
After being spoiled by a summer of color and sunshine, the short days and cold nights can be a kicker especially if every one of your plants looks dead (but rest assured they are just dormant). Because the winter can seem to last longer than three months (in Maine, I would swear it's six) planting with winter in mind can be useful. Combine evergreens with deciduous plants so that your yard isn't completely bare. Holly bushes come in several varieties, but remember to have both a male and female plant if you want berries. Thankfully, nurseries will mark the male from the female as I'm not certain how to tell the difference (I suspect it's far more complicated than just turning them over). I also like evergreens that produce pine cones in various size and shapes. Pine cones, like holly, make not only a pretty outdoor compliment to your yard, but indoors during the holidays as well.
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| This is the white coast cedar with blue pine cones, if it ever really starts growing, it will be far too big for its location, but, like Scarlett, I'll worry about that tomorrow. |
What I like about mixing in a few evergreens, is that they don't necessarily have to be "green". For example, blue rug junipers are a low growing shrub that are a beautiful shade of blue-green, and gold mop false cypress are a lovely shade of yellow-green. The white coast cedar I mentioned in my post on memorial gardens, has a silverish tinge to its green needle and produces a funky little blue pine cone.
As some evergreens can get quite large, I would suggest, if you also have a small yard, to look at dwarf varieties rather than regular varieties. Dwarf evergreens are slower to grow but won't overshadow other plantings. I mentioned in a previous post the benefits of shopping nurseries in the autumn to find lower priced shrubs and trees, but it's worth repeating. As long as the ground is still workable (i.e. not frozen) then planting a tree or shrub is just fine (in my opinion). You can even move perennials around to your hearts content. While some may argue that plants can't get settled at this time of year, my landscaping sister has re-assured me that the plants are in dormancy and cannot be harmed by being moved. Through experience, I have found that to be true.
My sister not only gives me good advice, but good plants as well. When she was working part time at a landscaping job, she brought me some perennial grasses that were going to be tossed out. I had never given grasses much thought, since I had assumed that they would be boring. Not so, especially this time of year. We weren't actually certain where to put the ornamental grass at first, I have no idea of what kind it is or how tall it gets, so the better half divided the plant into three sections and planted it along the path to the front door (which I still dream about replacing with brick, one of my future lofty goals). It did get a lot taller than we thought, but I like it where it is. When approaching the front door from the driveway I like the way the dried grass looks against the evergreen boulevard false cypress. I also cut some of the dried seed heads and brought them inside to see if they would retain the same shape and color when dried completely. They do! If you have a crafty side, I'm certain there are many uses for dried grasses (like arrangements and wreaths). Like the holly, it's nice to bring the outdoors in when the days are so short and the nights so long (so very, very long).
A couple of posts ago I waxed poetic about the use of evergreens in your landscape. What I failed to mention is that evergreens, which are generally an easy care plant, need a little help in winter to keep them healthy. For those smaller evergreens that you may have just planted in the fall, covering them with a A-frame is useful to keep the branches from snapping in half under the weight of heavy snow. For mature evergreens, such as the false cypress pictured right, gently knocking off the snow after a heavy storm is a must. I've seen plenty of slender arborvitae loose their natural shape because someone did not bother to knock the heavy snow off the branches. When the snow forms into ice, it becomes doubly tragic. The limbs will fall to the sides causing the arborvitae to look more like a lopsided letter "W" and less like an "O", it's natural pretty shape. If you have inherited a "W" shaped arborvitae, you can discreetly tie the branches that have strayed to the main trunk, gently lifting them up where they belong. 
I've included a recent photo here of my Hinoki false cypress. This poor shrub has been moved to four different locations and had one bad winter where it's main trunk split in two due to heavy snow and a negligent owner (namely, me). Now in it's permanent location, it's somewhat protected from strong winds and exposure, and it's big enough now where heavy snow is less of a problem. I did have to cut a large chunk out of the middle after I realized that the main trunk had split and I worried that it would always have a large hole. But, hopefully this photo demonstrates that nature can usually recover given enough time and care. One of the reasons I love this false cypress so much is that it's carefree shape usually requires no sort of tweaking, trimming, or shaping. Now I also love it because it can be trimmed when necessary and it forgives the intrusion.
