Winter Landscaping Guidelines
Gardeners that need to work in snowy regions will have many reasons to worry about winter. Plants will be at rest and their wonderful colors will disappear, leaving white and gray behind. With nothing left to plant this means you will need to think of other ways you can work on your landscaping you can approach from a different angle. The fact remains that through careful planning you can make use of winter landscaping in more than one way. If you want to make your place look good even in winter, then you can do with some preparations to make it all happen:
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Focusing on tree bark
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It is true that a lot of trees lose their leaves during wintertime, leaving nothing but trunks and branches behind. You can make use of ornamental trees that have a really distinct, welcoming bark that could still be a great addition to your place. Birch trees and dogwoods are some examples, but you can work with evergreens for obvious reasons.
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Making use of berries
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Many shrubs and trees have nice-looking berries that easily hold out during winter and fall seasons, as well as those who could serve as bird food for species that overwinter in the area. Crabapples are one example, as well as holly with really good looking berries you can make use of in your garden maintenance efforts.
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Working with evergreens
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Evergreens will allow you to take care of have a good-looking landscape without having to worry about seasonal changes all that much. Evergreens are not only green, but they come in different colors such as gold thread false cypress, as well as blue such as the dwarf blue spruce and many other colors. Evergreens will be a great addition to your gardening needs and design solutions, as they can serve as focal points throughout the entire year. You would need at least two evergreens and you can work a nice border around them for extra effect.
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Relying on your hardscape
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Winter is one good time to make a new assessment of your landscaping needs and to figure out where you can add some focal points in the design. The solution to this would be to enhance you winter landscaping may not always need planting at all. Benches, arbors, a trellis and some garden sculptures can be equally important.
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Adorning the summertime containers
Window boxes and hanging baskets, as well as any other winter-hardy containers will be an excellent addition to your winter landscaping. Dwarf Alberta spruce and some broadleaf evergreens such as the Japanese Andromeda, holly and rhododendron can be a really good addition to your wintertime garden, but they also need to be watered when dry.
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Sticking with four season perennials
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Some will have evergreen foliage, for example hellebores, dianthus and ornamental grasses in general. This makes them really good for winter landscaping needs, since you can simply research the plant and see whether it will have foliage during the winter.
Article contributed by Megan Powell