Winter Garden Interest V - Berries and Broadleaf Evergreens

The nice thing about hollies is that many of them keep their green leaves as well as the berries - making them colorful in the yard and handy as holiday decorations. And when I say green - that's just an umbrella term. Hollies also come with variegations. Green and white or green and yellow foliage provides a splash of brightness year round.

Another winter shrub with berries that I like is bayberry - not because it has outstanding winter color, but because its blue-silver berries provide another sensation that is not too common in winter - fragrance. Have you ever sniffed a bayberry candle? It's a product of those berries - which will also attract colorful birds.

Many viburnums have winter berries. 'Mohican,' 'Shasta,' 'Shoshon,' 'Summer Snowflake,' 'Alleghany' and 'Onondaga are a few that are recommended for winter fruits.

Probably my own favorite berry in winter is the rose hip. Rose hips can be fairly small, as they are on my Alba meideland rose (which has equally small flowers) to as large as cherry tomatoes. Some of the best hips grow on the rugosa variety of roses - which are also strong, and disease and pest resistant old roses that bloom all summer. Rugosas are a good choice in any season of the year if you don't mind the thorns. Our late Rose Garden editor Mark Whitelaw provides a list of good roses for hips as well as a recipe for Rose hip-Apple-Wine Jam. Mark was a chef as well as a dedicated rosarian, so try it - you'll like it! Rose hips are packed with vitamin C and so are good for you as well as the birds.

The best rose for gigantic hips is the Rosa villosa - the apple rose. It is also known as Rosa pomifera and is hardy in zones 6b and higher - lucky people! )And yes - despite all the winter bounty I am uncovering in this series, I do suffer from zone envy.)

So plants that fruit in the fall offer good color for the early part of winter - and then most of them recede into the background.

If your eyes hunger for something more permanent, consider those many unsung heroes of winter - the non-conifer trees and shrubs that keep their foliage all winter. Most non-conifers are referred to as broadleaf evergreens.

One big advantage to these broadleaf evergreen shrubs

Go To Page: 1 2 3 4

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic