’Tis the season — to enjoy your garden from inside on a wintry day when the weather is cold and blustery.
Why not dress up your entrance with winter-blooming plants to welcome you home, or place them where you can see them outside a window? Besides bedding plants like primroses, violas and pansies, there are colorful shrubs that bloom during the winter. Here are some good additions to your garden to brighten things up:
Yellow is a cheery color in the garden at any time of year. The deep golden flowers of Mexican marigold (Tagetes lemmonii) are carried on branch ends sporadically all year, peaking in winter and spring. Finely divided leaves are strongly fragrant when crushed and smell like a blend of marigold, lemon and mint, which is why deer avoid them. Prune them lightly to control shape and size. They grow 3 to 6 feet tall and wide.
Another shrub that blooms all winter and has yellow daisies is euryops. This, too, is deer resistant and grows to about 3 feet.
If you have a little more space, try “Rose Glow” leptospermum near a “Concha” ceanothus. The contrast between the deep red flowers of the tea tree with the bright blue flowers of the California lilac will certainly get your attention. These larger shrubs reach about 6 feet tall and as wide.
Camellias are another great shrub that starts blooming in the winter. Actually, Camellia sasanqua starts flowering in the fall, and some varieties, like the popular red “Yuletide,” bloom right at Christmas time. “Chansonette” is another beautiful variety with rich pink flowers.
Sasanqua camellias can tolerate a little more sun than the more common Camellia japonicas. They come in forms from compact shrubs to open vining types that can be espaliered. If you don’t have any of this variety, it would make a good addition to your garden.
Camellia japonica has been the standard in U.S. and European gardens since the 1800s, when it was introduced from China and Japan. Flowers range from formal types, like my favorite, “Nuccio’s Pearl,” to anemone-form, rose-form and peony-like blossoms. Their flowering season can be early (October and November), midseason (January through March) or late (March through May), which is why it seems that camellias are always blooming.
How to handle freeze damage
Frozen deep-golden ginkgo leaves at the base of my trees wasn’t what I had in mind as I watched my tree develop that beautiful fall color last week. I watched them land with a soft thud on the frosty ground this morning.
When we get a really hard frost, some plants do get nipped that normally would be fine in a light frost. Here’s how to deal with frost damage.
Don’t be tempted to rush out and prune away the damaged parts of the plant. This winter will bring more cold weather, and the upper part of your plant, even if damaged, can protect the crown from further freezing. This applies to citrus trees, too.
If a perennial, like Mexican bush sage, froze and is now gooey and black, cut the plant down to the ground. It will re-grow come spring from the root system. If the old, dead foliage and stems are not gooey, though, leave them until after the last frost next spring. They’ll provide an extra degree or two of protection for tender new buds and shoots coming along for next year.
That advice applies to all your perennials. And the best part: You don’t have to lift a finger until next year.
One last tip: If you do have plants that need covering in a frost, use a blanket, towel or other type of cloth, not plastic. The cold will go right through plastic covering and damage the plant.
Jan Nelson, a landscape designer and California certified nursery professional at Plant Works in Ben Lomond, will answer questions about gardening in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Contact her at
ja******@ao*.com
or JanNelsonLandscapeDesign.com.
