BEAUTY IN WINTER LANDSCAPE MAY REQUIRE PLANNING

The color contrast between summer and winter landscapes in Minnesota is startling. Summer gardens boast every color imaginable while winter landscapes are often drab and colorless. Snow, particularly in cities and along highways, takes on tones of gray as it collects dirt, then later reveals boring shades of brown as snow melts.

Over the past decade I have planted particular trees and shrubs that spice up the winter landscape with color and shapes. Some plants also attract wildlife that further enriches the nature panorama outside my windows.
Nancy Rose, a University of Minnesota extension educator in horticulture, lists various ways landscape plants can provide winter interest: Colorful, persistent fruit adds cheerful ornamentation to trees and shrubs.

Seed heads add texture and visual interest. Winter stems and bark provide bright colors, a rich metallic sheen, or the textural accent of papery curls. The branching patterns of deciduous trees and shrubs are often interesting, particularly when branches are dusted with snow. And, of course, what would the winter landscape be without the pleasing color and substance of evergreens?

A euonymus shrub (burning bush) growing a few feet from the foundation on the south side of my house is loaded this winter with tiny red berries. The plant has grown to about 10 feet tall so the berries nearly touch the south-facing windows.

A few feet beyond the euonymus, two crabapple trees have retained some of their fall crop of 1/2-inch apples, although blue jays and cardinals have discovered the fruit and are gradually reducing the colorful crop as the winter progresses. Nancy Rose says that ‘Donald Wyman’ crabapple wins the award for most-persistent fruit -- dozens of its bright red, 3/8-inch fruits are still present when the tree blooms in May.

Just beyond my crabapple trees are a half dozen American cranberry bushes (Viburnum trilobum, also known as highbush cranberry) which bear clusters of fruit that start turning red in early fall and persist all winter. My father used to say that robins wait until early spring for the fruit to soften, then gobble it up and get tipsy from eating the fermented berries.

More color is visible in this backyard area from the stems of dogwood shrubs. I have both red- and yellow-twig dogwoods growing and the stem color gets more intense as winter transitions into spring. The dogwood cultivar ‘Cardinal,’ a University of Minnesota introduction, is noted for having especially bright cherry red stems.

You'll get more colorful stems on dogwood, according to Rose, if you prune out some of the oldest stems each year -- this encourages more new stems which have the brightest winter color.

One spring I planted 30 bare-root arborvitae (white cedar) in a zigzag row about 100 feet south of my house. These evergreen shrubs have grown to nearly 10 feet in height and provide a pleasing contrast to the snow on the ground and the red berries on trees.

In previous columns I have written about landscape art -- my arbors, trellises and birdhouses made from tree stems, branches and hollow logs. Each year I plant climbing pole beans on a 12-ft. teepee trellis and then leave the vines attached during winter. The vines collect snow and the structure offers a sculptural touch.

Two additional winter sculptures, one on either side of the pole beans, are 10-foot-tall clumps of “bamboo grass” (Miscanthus giganteus). This slow-spreading grass produced giant seed plumes this fall that reflect the sun and wave gracefully in the winter breeze.

Trees with shiny or curly bark can add winter interest. For shiny bark, Rose says that nothing beats Amur chokecherry (Prunus maackii), a 15-25-foot-tall tree with gorgeous copper-colored bark. It's plenty cold hardy and, in fact, grows better in colder climates than in the steamy South. Trees with curly bark include river birch (Betula nigra), a native tree with masses of shaggy, peeling bark in shades of cream, tan, and pinkish orange.
Besides the arborvitae, I have planted white pine, Norway spruce, black hills spruce and white fir. The woody cones borne by many evergreens and the blue, berry-like cones of certain junipers can add a decorative note to winter landscapes as well, Rose points out.

Rose suggests spending time studying your yard this winter. “Could you use a splash of color at the edge of the deck or patio? How about some tall evergreens to frame a view? Wouldn't it be nice to admire the burnished copper trunk of an Amur chokecherry every time you look out the front picture window? Do some planning now. Then, when spring comes, do some planting to help make your landscape beautiful in ALL seasons.”

As I look out at my winter landscape, the plants and structures work together to create a pleasing view EXCEPT for the satellite dish installed to provide a high-speed internet connection. I’ll just have to put up with this obstruction, however, since it gives limitless resource for researching more plants for my garden.