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Virtual Winter II: Beyond black and white in the winter garden

© Carol Wallace

I'll be the first to admit--black and white are my colors. There are people who can honestly say those are the only colors they have ever seen me dressed in. I love the drama, the high contrast of the two most opposite colors in the spectrum.

At least I like them in my closet. Or in my interior designs and graphics. When I look out the window and see more of the same, I get depressed.

Perhaps it's because I get spoiled, summer day after summer day, watching new things bloom, seeing bright birds fly through to add even more change to the landscape. The only change in most winter gardens is from white to slushy grey. That doesn't even have the virtue of dramatic contrast!

In my own garden, though, there is color. Not just the green of our giant pines and cedars, but reds and golds and lavenders, oranges and mauves. No, I don't live in the tropics. I live in zone 5, average minimum temperature -20 degrees F. I just happen to grow some nice winter-time plants.

First of all, I grow lots of dwarf conifers. Chaemacyparus, especially, come in a wonderful array of colors, from the silvery blue C. pisifera ccyano-viridis Boulevard to golden C. Pisifera Filifera aurea nana. Andorrah juniper turns a sort of mauve-y lavender when cold hits. Thuja occ. ellwangeriana aurea Rheingold is a sort of rusty gold color. Some say it looks dead, but I say it has too much orange in it for that. A dwarf Montgomery spruce adds a note of powder blue to the mixture.

The conifers are the most important plants in my winter garden, as most are tall enough by now to show themselves over all but the deepest snows. But they are by no means the only plants to bring me winter relief.

The most colorful element in my array is a red-twigged dogwood, cornus siberica 'Elegans". I admit--this was happy chance. I bought it for it's green and white variegated leaves. I was even happier with the bright scarlet twigs those leaves revealed when they fell. You can also buy dogwoods with yellow twigs, or black--an interesting prospect for contrast. Then there's the little arctic willow, with twigs that turn violet when the cold weather arrives.

Beneath all of these are winter blooming heaths. Springwood white and Springwood pink have typical dark green foliage, but white and pink blossoms. Others have foliage, which may be rather ordinary all year, but which in winter develops colors ranging from bronze to steely grey to bright orange and gold. And many of mine haven't even come into bloom yet.