Garden Ornament

O, wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

~Percy Bysshe Shelley

In the absence of blooms, the winter garden can still be full of beauty, especially if you have added plants that color up from the cold like red twig dogwood, winter bloomers like Camillias and those that produce berries like pyracantha and hollies.

At this time of year I like to gather evergreen boughs that have been blown down by the winter winds to make arrangements, swags and wreaths. To these I can add from my garden red pyracantha berries (pyracantha koidzumii ‘Victory’), red rose hips, green Solanium crispin (potato vine) berries and various greenery or bare branches. Both the knobby twigs from my Katsura trees and the evergreen huckleberry’s (Vaccinium ovatum) leafy stems stay nice long after being cut and add height to an arrangement. The evergreen branches of sarcococca confusa (sweet box) have deep green leaves and interesting black berries right now. Even after our unusual week and a half of below freezing temperatures my daphne (Daphne caucasica ‘Summer Ice’) has begun blooming again, and both the evergreen Heleborus (soon to bloom) and the sword ferns have bounced back. In neighboring gardens I’ve seen Jasminum nudiflorum (winter jasmine) blooming its cheery yellow flowers.

At my front door I have attached to the outside wall, a green metal basket. Throughout the year I gather lovelies from the garden to make arrangements in it to ornament the porch. Today’s arrangement is made up of my evergreen huckleberry leafy stems, the silvery Russian sage (Perovskia ‘Little Spire’), the broad leaves of skimmia with its flower buds, and red rose hips. You may be surprised what beauty you can find in your gardens even now. 

It’s the Christmas season at our house, so to all of you my gardening friends around the globe, thank you for visiting my garden blog and may you have the gift of faith, the blessing of hope and the peace of His love at Christmas and always.

Merry Christmas

In bloom in my garden today: Daphne caucasica ‘Summer Ice’
Pyracantha berries photo courtesy of Pat Chissus