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Plants for all Seasons - Planning the Front Yard Garden II

© Carol Wallace

I guess it's possible to find a silver lining in almost anything. Mine for this week is a result of the garden being encased in ice for much of the last two weeks. These are the conditions that try plants' souls - and the ones that can reach the thaw still looking good are real winners in my book.

Still planning my neighbor's front yard garden, I am hunting for plants that will carry her through the winter as pleasantly as they do in summer. So I put on mud boots and trek through my own yard to view the carnage. Instead, I find the silver lining - plants that really passed the test! The winter heath is blooming heavily and the summer heather is standing erect with foliage in gorgeous hues of bronze, coral and red. The hellebores are still green, and there are buds forming under the slightly tattered foliage. Sweet woodruff still looks sprightly, and the silver foliage of the low growing Veronica incana 'Sarabande' looks as fresh as springtime. Primula foliage is still as crisp as lettuce, the creeping phlox looks as good as new, and so does the evergreen candytuft. And the heucheras are a bit battered, but still valiant.

Other plants are no longer green, but they do present an interesting look - not exactly beautiful, but still hopeful. The framework of the fountain-like Japanese maple is spectacular. The fragile skeleton of Coreopsis 'Moonbeam' is an interesting silhouette in bronze and the remains of the 'Autumn Joy' and Rosy Glow' sedum are still attractive. A miscanthus still looks like a perfect buff-colored shadow of its summer self. The 'Elijah Blue' fescues could stand a haircut, but are still blue beneath their little scorched tips.

So just from my own yard I can see dozens of possibilities for the front yard garden across the street that will keep it from looking like a vast wasteland in winter.

If you recall from last week this garden now has its "bones" planned - a white birch in the front corner, fronted by red twigged dogwoods, plus a cluster of rhododendrons and evergreen azaleas in the opposite corner with a bench tucked between them against the stone wall. There is a fieldstone path leading to the bench and bisecting the garden. The front quarter of the garden is in filtered shade, but as we near the front walk we have some sunny areas.

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