Garden Plants for Winter Colour

Colour from bark, leaves and some flowers will light up your winter garden

Remember life before Instagram, when you needed to go and look at things outside? Seems barbaric now, and besides, perhaps Tania Compton doesn’t want me snooping about her garden at night to admire Snowdrops by moonlight?

And much as I adore the wonderful coral spikes of Salix alba ‘Britzensis’, I’m not schlepping to Oregon to admire them:

And here are some willow shoots I snowed on earlier:

Willows are great near water, as are Dogwoods, both of which have some striking bark colours from yellow through reds and oranges to purple and violet.

Evergreen plants all qualify as winter garden staples, but there is something about Holly, especially 100% berried varieties such as Golden King, that is hard to beat: it’s the complete package of great foliage studded with vivid colour. Another exciting option is Mahonia – there is a great cultivar called Winter Sun that we don’t sell (yet). For a more straightforward evergreen hedge that flowers in winter, try Viburnum × bodnantense ‘Dawn’.

Winter Jasmine, Jasminum nudiflorum, is a bit of a one-trick plant that some gardeners avoid because after it flowers in winter, there isn’t much else to say about it.
It’s a matter of right plant, right place: it’s really a weeping plant, so growing it where it can trail downwards plays to its nature and saves you from working to tie it up against a wall. It also needs regular pruning to remove old wood: neglected Winter Jasmines look sad in winter with their sparse flowers. A less controversial option is the evergreen winter clematis group, cirrhosa, with great varieties like Freckles.

Winter Cherries, Prunus × subhirtella and their pink form, Rosea, are not spectacular like summer cherry blossoms, but their dainty little flowers are still held on a tree’s branches, projected above you against the rolling old sky.

A staple of country hedges, the common Spindle plant, Euonymus europaeus, has unique pink and orange seed pods.

Sarcococca confusa, Sweet Box, is a rare example of a well-scented plant for the winter garden, and its shade tolerance means you can squeeze it in almost anywhere.

Winter aconites are bulbs with cute little yellow flowers, which you can plant dry in Autumn or in the green in Spring

Winter Jasmine, Jasminum nudiflorum, is not scented like other Jasmines, but it has yellow flowers in winter over green stems that really brighten up the place. It has a reputation for looking messy the rest of the year, and this is often true, but here’s a tip: Winter Jasmine looks best as a trailing shrub, tumbling down a slope or wall, rather than growing up it.

Here are 8 other plants to check out for their winter display (we don’t sell any of them, so don’t ask!):

1. Christmas Rose – Helleborus niger
2. Winter Honeysuckle – Lonicera fragrantissima
3. Winterberry – Ilex verticillata
4. Witch Hazel – Hamamelis species
5. Wintersweet – Chimonanthus praecox
6. Coronilla valentina subsp. glauca
7. Sarcococca hookeriana var. digyna
8. Stachyurus praecox