Simple Ideas to Bring Festivity and Warmth to your Winter Container Plantings
CONTAINED
BRILLIANCE
Winter is around the corner! I know this because daylight savings has ended, dogwood branches are bare, rose hips are visible, and I’ve shifted my drink of choice from a sweet chai latte to a Tiger Spice Chai latte. These things — seeing the bare branches, noticing gorgeous winter colors, and walking past neighborhood homes festively decorated with holiday lights and greenery — signal to me that it’s time to make some seasonal changes to my most focal container plantings, like those at my front door and in view from my kitchen and living room.
You’ll approach your container plantings differently at this time of year depending on where you live. Here in the Pacific Northwest, if you remember to keep your plantings well watered, containers planted in October should hold from now through April due to the mild weather. To prepare for the holiday season, you might just want to add a little bling to your evergreen focal plant (the thriller, so to speak) and surrounding seasonal annuals. Some winter hardy choices I am quite fond of are Drimys lancelolata, 'Goldcrest' Monterey cypress, and Ilex varieties like ‘Little Rascal’ or ‘Sky Pencil’. The wonderful part about these choices is that you can choose to leave them in your container or transplant them into your garden when spring arrives.
However, in colder climates, the winters can be so cold that using spruce tops as the thrillers instead of live evergreen shrubs may be necessary. Your planting might consist of cut evergreen branches, such as cedar boughs or perhaps an evergreen garland, rather than live perennials.
Regardless of climate, there are a number of eye-catching accessories you can use to embellish your container plantings for the holidays, ranging from interesting cut branches to ornaments. Curly willow, Red Twig and Mid-Winter Fire dogwood are just a few excellent choices to incorporate into your planting for texture and color. They can create an almost airy effect, erupting from beneath your evergreen thriller, while also giving color and creating height in a planting.
Some of my favorite fillers for the holidays are pinecones, berries, and ornaments. Pinecones and dried plant material such as globe thistle, when paired with deciduous branches and balls of woven grapevine, can offer fun texture and elegance in their neutral color display. Berries are another excellent way to add interest to your planting. 'Callicarpa ‘Pearl Glam’, with its effervescent purple berries, Winterberry, with its bright red berries, and Rose Hips, with their orange tinted seed pods, all offer bright, eye-catching pops of color at this time of year. Colorful ornaments can also add a bit of shimmer and sparkle to any planting. These are wonderful “bling” touches, which offer an opportunity to be creative.
Faux plant material is yet another fantastic option for adding color and texture while negating freeze concerns. The quality is so good these days that when mixed with live plants, fake plant material can fool even the most discerning eye. There are a plethora of options in the faux arena, including berry sprigs, pine cones, and evergreen matches. I enjoy using faux plant material in deep shady spots, where other colorful blooming plants would fail. I’ve also taken to painting dried eucalyptus pods red and tucking them in for a whimsical burst of color.
Finally, light brings festiveness to any holiday display. Stringing twinkle lights around your focal evergreen or deciduous branches or bundling a strand into a bunch to tuck into the center of your arrangement are both nice touches, which can add sophistication to any winter planting. Once the holidays are over, you can remove the “bling” and let your evergreens and winter annuals take over until your spring blooming bulbs start coming up in February.
Looking for more ideas and inspiration for creating winter interest in your plantings? Deborah Silver of Detroit Garden Works is someone I follow for inspiration. Her installations are contemporary, creative and as much about art as they are about nature. I am enamored by them.
Remember, be inspired, think magical. Making your container plantings more festive for the season is a wonderful way to spread a little joy and cheer—if not for others, for yourself!
