How is your yard looking these last few weeks? How will it look in another two to three weeks? Do you find your landscape is lacking interest? Is the grass brown and all your branches bare? Did you have a surplus of perennials in a bed, or around your house and now that they are either cut down or flopped over yellow or brown, your house has no substance to its landscape?
I passed a beautiful old house today. The problem was it didn’t look so beautiful. In actuality, the bones of the house left it comparing well to the other gorgeous 100+ year old houses along side it. Problem was, the owner had only planted hydrangeas, hostas, roses, maples, salvia and a few other perennials or deciduous trees. Not only does the house lack any winter interest and beauty, but it looks horrible. The lack of a landscape actually makes the house look uncared for and in need to maintenance. Now, more than ever, I am thinking about how important it is to plan your garden starting with plants that will bring beauty all year.
There actually are benefits to having a dead winter however. For one, my son lost his bike back in the spring when the woods’ undergrowth started thickening up. He found his bike last weekend since the underbrush is now gone. It was missing 6 months. That’s a definite benefit, right? I noticed that I can now see my house from the end of my road due to the leaves being off the trees and I kind of enjoy that. We can look out the window and see all the trees that have fallen throughout the year. The benefit of that is easy to find firewood. Okay, okay. These benefits aren’t all that great. But one I LOVE is that I am able to see, focus and identify all of the gorgeous plants that provide us with beauty all year long.
So what can you do? Look at your yard for the next few weeks. Take notes on what is missing, what you don’t love, and what you would like to see in the winter time. Take a look around at other peoples yards as you drive. Do you see anything beautiful? Keep these notes until spring. THIS IS IMPORTANT : In the spring when you are all super excited about gardening, and bunnies, and baby birds, and bright beautiful flowers…..STOP! Pull out your thoughts from winter time and START there first. Why? It is easy to find plants and flowers that will be beautiful in the spring and summer. What is more challenging is to find plants, flowers, and shrubs, that will give you beauty in the winter. Start with the most challenging (winter interest) and work around that.
If you need help identifying plants that might work for your yard, you can use a plant database. www.nga.com is the National Gardening Association. They have a searchable database you can use. Choose your zone, choose your foliage color and the season of interest and it will pull up a selection of plants. This list is NOT exhaustive. Sometimes it helps to compare the results with other search engines. Try www.finegardening.com , They also have a searchable database with decent search parameters. If you need anymore help laying out your landscape, or choosing plants, you can contact me and I can draw a plan for you to use.
I think you will find that if you concentrate on your foundation and winter interest plantings first, that gardening in the spring with perennials and annuals will not only be more enjoyable, but it will be easier and will look much, much better. Best of all, you wont be looking at death all winter long and your house will look well kept in the winter. The lack of depression experienced when pulling into your driveway and seeing only a beautiful, cheery winter landscape, is surely a bonus.
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