Guides by Season: Winter Guides
Hardiness
Flowering Crabapples with Persistent Fruit
From fall into winter, crabapples put on a terrific display of colorful fruit in a wide array of color, including pale lime, chartreuse with yellow highlights, various shades of gold often rouged with pink, orange or bright red cheeks, bright orange, crimson, carmine, burgundy or even bishop's purple. If persistent, their color parade can be enjoyed for months unless hungry birds feast on them.
Trees with Four Seasons of Interest for your Garden
Create a garden that commands attention throughout the year by selecting trees that excite interest month after month and provide a ravishing show throughout all four seasons.
Berberis thunbergii (Japanese Barberry)
Berberis thunbergii (Japanese Barberry) is a compact, woody shrub with arching, slender, zig-zag branches bearing a single, sharp spine at each node below each rosette of leaves. The wedge-shaped leaves are untoothed, slightly blue-green to green to dark reddish purple, and borne in whorls or clusters. Some Japanese Barberry cultivars are spectacular additions to the landscape where they bring a strong color accent from spring to fall.
Glamorous Large-Flowering Amaryllis
The Large Flowering Amaryllis group is the most popular group with single flowers up to 8-10 in (20-25 cm). Their cultivars belong to the Galaxy group. Each bulb usually produces 2-3 stems and 4-6 flowers per stem. These exquisite Amaryllis tend to grow up to 18-24 in. tall (45-60 cm). Depending on temperature, they bloom 6-10 weeks after planting.
Brighten Up Your Garden From January Through May with Colorful Flower Bulbs
Tulips, daffodils, hyacinths and crocus: these are the spring bloomers everyone knows. But there are hundreds of other, lesser-known beauties to plant in fall. Some are small and delicate, others tall and ungainly. All are fabulous. Wait till you see them!
Helleborus (Hellebores)
There are 17 Hellebore species. Most are native to the mountainous regions of Europe, especially the Balkan region of the former Yugoslavia, south along the eastern Adriatic to Greece and Turkey. Many of the species have been interbred, producing countless hybrid Hellebores in a rich array of colors and forms.
Chaenomeles - Flowering Quinces
Among the first shrubs to bloom in late winter to early spring, Flowering Quinces (Chaenomeles) are deciduous shrubs that are welcomed additions to the winter garden. They boast abundant clusters of charming, apple-blossom shaped flowers in cheerful shades of delicate pink, rich vermilion, coral red and pure white.
Gladiolus (Sword-Lilies)
Real eye-catchers in the garden, Gladiolus, also known as sword lilies, are cormous perennials boasting incredibly spectacular spikes of funnel-shaped flowers in summer in a surprisingly wide range of colors. Borne atop attractive fans of sword-shaped or linear leaves, they always provide a dramatic effect with their rich and cheerful colors and their breathtaking vertical lines.
Echeverias
Native to Mexico and Central America, Echeverias are regarded by many as one of the most beautiful succulents. Evergreen, they form attractive rosettes of fleshy leaves and often resemble plum-petaled roses, waterlilies or ruffled lettuce. There are dozens of species, and hundreds of cultivars offering a wide array of colors, sizes or leaf shapes.
Paperwhites
When days grow short and winds blow cold, indoor flowers go a long way to warm the heart and cheer the soul. The easiest and most rewarding bulbs you can grow, Paperwhites are amazingly fragrant daffodils that are perfect for producing flowers in a short period of time when grown indoors. Hailing from the temperate shores of the southeastern Mediterranean, these bright, peppery-scented bulb flowers are not winter hardy. However, in warm climates (zones 8-11) with hot, dry summers, paperwhite bulbs can be planted outside where they will bloom annually for many years. Paperwhites are members of the daffodil family, Narcissus tazetta.
Scilla Varieties
Treasured for their flowers, most Scillas bloom in spring but a few species produce their pretty blooms in late summer or fall. Which one is for you?
Learn How To Plant, Care and Grow Gorgeous Freesias
An essential component of many bouquets thanks to their long vase life (over 3 weeks), Freesias are striking beauties that also deserve a spot outdoors. Visually stunning with their abundant clusters of brightly colored flowers on gently arching stalks, they are also intensely fragrant. Native to South Africa, these tender cormous perennials, often grown as annuals, require minimal maintenance, are virtually disease-free and pest-free, deer and rabbit resistant, and will multiply to form generous clumps over time - provided some basic rules are respected.
Add Drama in Your Garden With Terrific Japanese Maples
While all Japanese Maples are beautiful and provide a fabulous architectural presence, in the garden or in containers, some feature particularly outstanding features such as dramatic foliage, long-lasting striking leaf color, unusual leaf shape or striking winter bark. The eye can never pass lightly over the dazzling color presented by their flaming foliage across seasons or the graceful outlines of their brilliant coral twigs and branches.
Camellias
Queens of the winter flowers, Camellias are attractive evergreen shrubs that are highly prized for the beauty of their exquisite blooms, their splendid evergreen foliage and their compact shapely habit. Blooming prodigiously for weeks from fall to spring (depending on climate and variety), when the rest of the garden offers little, Camellias are ranked as one of the very best flowering shrubs
Fascinating Cybister and Exotic Amaryllis
More and more popular, the Cybister Amaryllis are truly spectacular with their exotic, orchid-like flowers. They feature long, ribbon-like, spidery petals and splashes of bright color such as deep reds, soft green, copper, dark pink, creamy white and burgundy. They are unlike any other Amaryllis group and their cultivars belong to the Spider group.
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