Don’t let Oregon’s winters with gray skies and continuous (so it seems) rain get you down.  Plant an exciting garden with great winter plants that have colorful foliage, berries, flowers, seed heads, or beautiful exfoliating bark    There are a variety of plants that can give you this cheerful landscape.  Add a few bird feeders and you will have entertainment and beauty to enjoy  while sitting at your breakfast table looking out the window.

Birch trees have a beautiful peeling white bark.  Most everyone has seen these trees.   But did you know that there are several other trees and shrubs that also have beautiful peeling bark?  The Paperbark Maple (Acer grisium) exhibits a cinnamon peeling bark, & the Japanese Stewardia (Stewardia pseudocamellia) has exfoliating attractive orange and brown bark.  The shrub Ninebark (Physocarpus) develps fascinating peeling reddish-brown bark. 

Now is the time to critically assess your garden and add the special winter interest items for sparkle year round.  The next time you stop by the Garden Center, let us show you these lovely plants.

Colorful foliage:  Colorado Spruce, Sekkan Sugi Japanese Cedar, Elegans Japanese Cedar, Oregon Grape, Rheingold Arborvitae, Golden Hinoki,  Dwf Golden Hinoki,,  Golden threadbranch, Bergenia , Nandina, Carex, & Heucheras.   

Exfoliating  or colorful bark:  Japanese Stewardia, Diablo Ninebark, Birch,    Paperbark Maple, Coral Bark Maple, & Red-twig Dogwood

Winter Blooming:  Hellebore, Camellia, Heath, Witch Hazel, Daphne odora, pansies, Pieris, & Pulmonaria.

Winter Berries:   Cotoneaster, Barberry, Skimmia japonica female, & Crabapple

Winter Seedheads:  Grasses and Clematis.