Archive for category: Landscape Design

It is often a tough task to keep your greenery going during these cold winter months. Thankfully there are a number of plants and trees that can be kept from the snow, ice and barren ground.

Perfect Outdoor Plants for Winter Landscaping in Annapolis

For gardeners, yard enthusiasts and homeowners in the Annapolis, Maryland area, winter doesn’t have to mean sterile white, dead gardens. There are many plants you can add to your winter landscape that bloom in winter – even in our area!

Now is a wonderful time to go through your garden and consider ways to add color and texture to your winter landscape. Here are some perfect outdoor plants for winter landscaping in the Annapolis, Maryland area. Contact us for a free estimate for all of your landscaping needs!

Outdoor Plants for Winter Landscape Color

Don’t despair! In the winter, you don’t have to give up the lovely hues in your garden or backyard. For starters, here’s a list of plants from HGTV for your winter landscape and gardens that also are rated for the Annapolis, Maryland hardiness zones:

Mahonia: Leatherleaf mahonia (Mahonia bealei) and selected cultivars of M. x mediaprovide a yellow bloom and berries that birds enjoy in winter. Mahonia, sometimes known as Beale’s barberry, is a bristly shrub that has become more invasive in warmer environments. The shrubs grow to 8-12 feet but can easily be maintained at a 6-foot height.

Best location is in a security perimeter or at least away from sidewalks and walking paths. A close relative, Oregon grape holly, flowers in early spring and more hardy to USDA (4)5.

Daphne Bholua: The most common variety of this species introduced to the West from Nepal is ‘Jacqueline Postill.’ It has fragrant, white blooms that appear in the middle of winter. It is also evergreen and covered with beautiful thin, wavy, deep green leaves.

Lily-of-the-Valley Bush: Pieris japonica is also a type of evergreen shrub that prefers moist, well-drained, acid, organic soil. They have been around since at least 1000 B.C., and are one of the most fragrant blooming plants. The stems are covered with tiny, drooping bell-shaped flower clusters of delicate white blossoms that burst from pink buds in winter and spring. Their leaves are medium-bright green and lance shaped.

Plant this one in the late fall so the cool winter temperatures allow a proper dormancy period.

Christmas Rose: Helleborus niger is one of the easier garden plants to grow. They are considered the aristocrats of the winter and early spring garden. Beautiful nodding saucer-shape flowers grace the stems when few plants brave the cold winter elements. The flowers consist of 5 showy petallike sepals surrounded by leafy bracts. These tough plants thrive in shade or dappled sunshine and moist, organic soil; there are hundreds of cultivars available in a variety of hues, including white and cream to pink, rose, burgundy, and light green.

Hellebore require a good, deep, well-drained soil with plenty of humus and partial shade. When temperatures fall below 15 degrees Fahrenheit, blooming is usually put off until the weather warms. At low temperatures, some protection is needed.

Plant these under under deciduous trees as they enjoy the summer shade and winter sun.

Winter Jasmine: Jasminium nudiflorum is a beautiful vining shrub that can be trained up a trellis or wall. However, it is more appealing as mass as ground cover for slopes, banks and terraces. It’s easy to trail stems over a stone wall or terrace. As mentioned above, it can easily be trained as a vine on a support structure. In fact, as a vine, it is quite effective when framed close up in front of a wall.

In the winter, the beauty has hundreds of bright yellow flowers that open along the stems in the dead of our coldest months.

This one will have you watching out for Japanese beetles.

Witch Hazel: The American witch hazel tree is named this because they were used as dowsing rods by early colonists in the New World who could not obtain English hazel wood for that purpose. All species contain high tannin content and have been a part of the cosmetic industry as an old fashioned astringent known as witch hazel.

Rich coppery-orange flowers on this unusual shrub add blazing color to the winter landscape. Flowers with wavy, strap-like petals appear on the bare branches. Plant near entries and patios. The ‘Jelena’ variety blooms in a coppery orange shade as early as January, and it has a crimson-orange fall foliage.

The ‘Jelena’ like full sun and regular weekly watering.

Red River Lily: Also known as Kaffir lily, is native to South Africa and normally blooms beautiful bright red blooms in the summer. But since it wasn’t able to shift the blooming pattern to fit our climate, it blooms here in the very late, in fall or even later if the weather isn’t too cold in winter.

Ideal to decorate around bodies of water in your garden, it is also perfectly suited to ordinary soil, provided that it is often watered in summer.

The Kaffir lily’s name comes from the fact that this beautiful bloom grows freely in Southern Africa’s formerly known as Kaffraria, the land of the Kaffirs. The autumn landscape is brightened with these gladiolus-like flowers. They bloom on stalks adorned with basic cup to star shaped blooms.

These grow to a height of 16 to 24 inches, like full sun and pretty moist soil. Once properly settled in, schizostylis is a plant that has little need for care. Cut flowers as they wilt to spur appearance of new buds. Thick mulch on the ground helps keep the soil cool and moist which helps avoid many watering sessions.

Other Winter Landscape Suggestions

Of course, flowers aren’t the only plants that can jazz up your winter landscape and garden. Interested in a few more winter landscape ideas? Check these out. They complement the gray days of winter in your garden:

Bark: While your deciduous trees will shed their leaves in the winter, the underlying bark and branches may catch the eye. The dark, reddish-brown bark of flowering dogwood trees has square-shaped plates that provide texture. Birch trees’ pale color contrasts well with the peeling texture.

Evergreens: As the name implies they’re lush, and they certainly live up to it. These conifers and shrubs provide a constant gorgeous green hue to your garden throughout the winter. Their branches also look absolutely gorgeous when draped in snow. There are a ton of varieties to meet your landscape needs.

Ornamental Bay Grasses: Another awesome option is to leave your ornamental grasses in place during the winter. When covered in snow, the greens, tans and oranges provide a lot of neutral color and beauty. They also sound amazing with the whipping winter winds.

Let’s Talk Hardscapes

Consider what you will lose by the winter… parts of your yard will be barren. Are there parts of your yard that won’t be suitable for any of the winter plants you’ve considered? This might be an excellent time to consider something more permanent, such as an arbor, a bench, a trellis, or even a new pavers patio or pavers pool deck.

If you’re planning to build a project in the summer, you’ll be ready to start work in the fall and have the item completed by winter. You won’t want to just throw down some new furniture. In addition to thinking about how you’ll decorate around it, consider how you’ll make paths accessible, what kinds of new plants will fit your new outdoor living space!

This is also a good time to consider upkeep on structures in your garden. In fact, there is no reason why you can’t do this! Maybe your patio furniture is currently teal, and you don’t want it to be so blue in the winter. You could clean or refinish old wooden railings for a more sophisticated appearance. To make an item stand out in the winter gray and white, give it some color.

Light Up Your Garden & Walkways

During the dark evenings of winter, all you need is a few simple ideas to brighten up your home. Solar lighting eliminates the hassle of connecting wires across your yard, so it’s much more environmentally friendly than traditional Christmas decorations. Lighting that penetrates the darkness is another way to liven up your property in late winter.

Get An Expert’s Opinion

If you live in the Annapolis, Maryland area, please contact us to start making plans now to transform a potentially dreary landscape into a magical, winter wonderland. Now is a wonderful time to go through your garden and consider ways to add color and texture to your winter landscape.

We can help you pick out the perfect outdoor plants for winter landscaping in the Annapolis, Maryland area. Whether you’re creating a new gazebo, starting a planting campaign, or simply fine-tuning your already lavish garden, our designers will help you come up with the best option for your house.