Category: Front Border

Container Gardening: Winter Containers

julia erickson2 Comments

Yesterday, before today’s snow, I replanted all my planters in the front garden for the winter. I love having something beautiful to look at when most of the garden is sleeping. For inspiration this year, I looked at some photographs I took at the Missouri Botanical Garden (http://mobot.org/) last winter.

The first pot has a yellow twig dogwood as its base. From there, I added boughs of white pine and dried hydrangea blossoms from a Pee Gee hydrangea in the garden.

On the front porch is an urn whose plantings change every season. For winter, I have cut branches of winterberry surrounded by dried statice and white pine branches. Also, added are some large pine cones from a collection my husband and I have gathered over the years.

Near the lamp post is a small pot atop a column which has Douglas fir clippings, some faux winterberries, and pine cones. Since this pot is in a more exposed position than the one on the porch, in the the past I have found that real winterberries do not hold up as well.

The last pot I did is in front of the living room. In the center of the pot are branches cut from a red twig dogwood surrounded by more Douglas fir branches. A few pine cones were added also.

The pots will add interest to the garden until spring comes and are easy to do. You can use cuttings from your own garden, buy some from local nurseries, or from White Flower Farm (http://www.whiteflowerfarm.com/) who sells a wonderful 14 pound box of winter greens.

Ballerina Rose Hips

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In my prior post about Ballerina, I wrote about her all-purpose qualities that have won her many places throughout my garden. In addition to what I previously wrote, I went out into the garden today and took the attached pictures of her cute little hips that provide winter interest and food for the birds.

For my prior post and pictures of Ballerina’s flowers:

http://heirloomgardener.blogspot.com/2007/11/ballerina.html

Hydrangea Wrapped For Winter

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When I moved into my home, there was a hydrangea by the lamp post that produced no flowers. I knew that the deer were eating it regularly. So I began a successful regiment of deer spraying, only to find that each winter it also got killed to the ground. I find that in my Zone 6b garden hydrangea are frequently only root hardy which means that the stems are prone to being killed by the cold. Since this hydrangea only flowers on old wood it produced no flowers–it was just a foliage plant.

That fall I asked my husband to wrap it in burlap and cover it with oak leaves. I asked him to do it too late and we ran out of leaves, so we only protected the lower half of the plant. This year we got a few flowers. For the first time I saw they were mopheads with pink sepals edged in white. I asked my husband to start earlier and we covered the entire plant. He wrapped burlap around three bamboo stakes and stuffed it full of oak leaves, covering it entirely to about four feet high. Hopefully next year, the whole plant will produce flowers.

Sophie’s Rose Provides Late Season Color

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The frost has come and gone, but Sophie’s Rose continues to bloom. I purchased Sophie’s Rose on a recommendation from Matterhorn Nursery in Spring Valley, New York, one of the best nurseries in the tri-state area:

http://www.matterhornnursery.com/

Matterhorn Nursery contains a large David Austin rose display garden and sells many David Austin roses, including Sophie’s. It blooms prolifically from May through November.

Sophie’s Rose is planted in my front mixed border in part-shade. I am amazed it blooms as much as it does given the lack of full sun.

This is a tall, but not wide rose. It should be planted in a group of at least three, each spaced two feet apart. After being pruned to about twenty-four inches tall in the spring, it ends the season approximately seven feet tall.

For more information about David Austin roses:

http://www.davidaustinroses.com/

Snow in the Garden

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The warm weather over the past eight weeks was too good to be true. It has snowed over twelve inches since yesterday, and more snow is expected throughout the day and night. I ventured out to take some pictures of the garden.

Descriptions of the pictures are enumerated from the top:

1. Butterfly Bush decorated with Christmas ornaments in the front garden next to the lamp post.

2. A grouping of spirea next to the front staircase. It is difficult to see with the snow, but behind the spirea are Rosa glauca and miscanthus ‘Adagio.’ Further back is Wiegela florida to the left and a lace bark pine in the center.

3. Lacecap hydrangea in the front garden. To the left of the hydrangea is the rose Frau Dargmar Harstrup.

4. The arbor over the entrance to the side garden is covered with the rose Dortmund. In the forefront of the picture are caryopteris. For winter interest, I hung a string of decorative apples on the fence.