Popular Trees And Shrubs For Your Winter Garden
Ok, so trees don’t typically look their best in winter and that’s ok! There’s something awe inspiring about a tree in the middle of your winter garden, no matter how bare the branches may be. And, there’s just not a whole lot that can beat the smile on your face as you watch it spring to life and bloom as the snow melts away after the winter season has ended.
So let’s take some time to learn about some of the popular tree and shrub choices. In early spring, the trees and shrubs we’re learning about today will all bloom with showy, colourful flowers. Unlike the tropical, hard-to-find blossoms, theses are available at good local nurseries in the regions where they grow well.
When choosing a spring-blooming tree or shrubs, it is good to note its cold-hardiness, ultimate size, rate of growth, and soil preference, as well as its flowers. Although they blossom in early spring, their bark color, shape, and texture will give your winter garden an extra boost of life until the snow melts away, and new blossoms begin to bloom all around your yard.
And with that, let’s start learning! Each of the trees and shrubs below make great choices for your winter garden, season in and season out.
Red Maple – Acer Rubrum
The red maple is a shade tree with dangling clusters of red flowers, appearing very early in spring. Fast growing, it also has a colourful display of fall foliage, and some types new branches turn red in winter. Needing full sun, they will grow to a height of 40 ft or taller. This type of maple is native to wet areas throughout the eastern parts of the United States. Adapts well to average garden soil and will make a good shade tree for lawns, or other garden areas.
Serviceberry/Shadbush – Amelanchier Laevis
Blooming in early spring, small white or pale pink flowers will blossom close together along the limbs of this small tree. Sometimes, it’s grown with multiple trunks to show off its handsome bark and bright colors; especially in the fall. The Serviceberry prefers moist, well drained soil with full or part sun. Growing from 15-25 ft tall, it is a healthy and care-free tree.
Flowering Quince – Chaenomeles
The flowering quince is a tough, adaptable shrub; dense, bushy, and upright with crooked, thorny twigs. The flower coloring is an almost fluorescent pink, scarlet, orange or sometimes white that resembles the shape of an apple blossom. It will grow from 4-8 ft in height requiring full or part sun, with average garden soil. The plant may drop its leave early some years if drought or disease affect it but always recovers the next season. Quince can be pruned as a hedge if desired or as an espalier.
Cornelian Cherry Dogwood – Cornus Mas
This dogwood is a small tree growing small clusters of greenish yellow flowers that are smaller than forsythia blossoms. In the summer, cherry sized red berries decorate the tree. The rest of the year, flaky bark and glossy foliage in rich fall colors adds character to the tree. Average soil and full or part sun is all the tree will need to grow at least 15 feet tall. Ones the tree is established, it can even tolerate moderate droughts.
Heaths – Erica
A small evergreen shrub, with needle-like foliage, that will bear clusters of small, bell-shaped rose, pink, or white flowers. Heaths make an excellent ground cover for sandy or acidic soils. They can even being blooming before the snow melts and continue for many weeks. Requiring full or part sun, they will need preferably acidic or neutral, well drained soil. With suitable accommodations heaths will live for decades and need little care. Prune them back halfway after they bloom to keep them tidy; promoting dense, vigorous new growth.
Forsythia – Forsythia
This deciduous shrub comes in many types, though all have slender twigs with yellow flowers. Very showy flowers, common types will not grow well in harsh winters since the buds freeze. Look for common cultivars such as Meadowlark, growing 10 ft tall and wide with bright yellow flowers; Northern Sun, reaching a height of 8 feet, bearing medium yellow flowers; Vermont Sun, growing from 6 to 8 feet tall and wide, will bloom about a week earlier than other kinds, displaying lemon yellow flowers over it’s branches. Forsythia require full son with average garden soil. The plant also needs to be pruned after flowering to control size and shape; remove some of the oldest shoots at ground level. Also, note that forsythia can blossom in late fall, but plenty more will follow in the spring.
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