Winter colour

Is there anything I can plant now to give winter colour.
My garden was so drab last winter I would like to try and put some colour into it November - February before the spring bulbs come into flower.
Any ideas.
Shrubs trees anything.

 

we have a Choisya 'Sundance' visible from our kitchen window and through the drab days of winter it looks like our own shaft of golden sunlight - it brightens so many days
I also love the early daffs in bold clumps
then there's Mahonia 'Charity' for fragrant flowers all winter

 

I have just planted some Erysimum bowles mauve - lovely lilac flowers.

Reason being, my mum has one and lives just down the road and hers was still flowering at christmas last year So have planted it purely for that reason!

 

phormiums and cordylines are quite colorful. fatsias are evergreen for the most part and have dramatic big leaves. pyracantha have berries during winter which the birds like. there are dogwoods that have a variety of colored stems during winter. contorted hazel has very interesting twisty shapes to its stems in winter and gets long dangly catkins in early spring. just to name a few things !

 

If you have room for a tree, I'd go for Betula jaquemontii. It is an elegant silver birch with pure white bark that stands out in winter, especially if you plant it in the north of the garden where the low winter sun will make it glow. Then underplant with the various coloured stemmed dogwoods and spring bulbs.
There is also the winter flowering jasmine nudiflorum, and Lonicera fragrantissima, winter flowering honeysuckle which is also highly fragrant.

 

I have some hellebore seeds (lenten roses ) I am trying to germinate but they are very difficult and can take months ,

They make lovely baskets over the winter and you can get lots of different flower colours

 

Lyn,

Going through the same question as yourself I happen to have open beside me a copy of that excellent book "Adrian Bloom's Winter Garden Glory" It covers Autumn to Spring and is brilliant.

For partial shade, especially under a decidous tree or shrub I would go for a silver leaf Pulmonaria (Siane Clare) Year round good looks plus blue and red flowers in late winter/spring. Hellebore niger christmas rose and Hellebore orintalis

Shrubs - Cornus alba - midwinter fire - great stems. Aurea, yellow leaves for spring summer and Autumn - red stems in the winter. Yeollow leaves often scorch in the summer sun so plant in partial shade.

winter heathers.

Mahonia - get japonica for its scent.

Photina Red Robin. Trim it back in the autumn and if we have a mild winter the new red growth will be earlier than usual.

If you can bear it - the ordinary gorse flowers all year round

 

Some good suggestions there. We have a Witch hazel next to our front door and that looks superb for a few weeks during the winter. :thumb:

 

Just like Lovage I can also recommend choisya 'Sundance' it is indeed like the sun is shinning on it on the darkest days although it can take a battering from harsh weather or at least our's seems to suffer from the wind and cold.

The dogwoods are wonderful too we have the red ones in our garden and although they don't look much the rest of the year (very boring leaves and flowers) in winter their bare stems are stunning. You have to remember to hack the plant right back in spring as it's only the fresh new growth that gives off the stunning winter colour not the old growth.Hel.xxx