Some showy subjects for shade and bloom in winter are the hellebores.  Much hybridizing efforts have yielded a wide array of foliage textures and colors, and floral colors and even doubles.  The old fashioned species have been selected and crossed to give showy new varieites for the garden.  You can take your pick of taller and shorter plants, bold coarse foliage or fine textured foliage nowadays.  Flower colors have been expanded as well.  You can have whites, pinks, purples, even yellows and chartreuse and the showiest of all are the lighter basic colored blooms blotched conspicuously besides smaller dots on the face of the petals in many forms.  There are also rare doubles in various colors.   There are many varieites, so the best thing to do is to peruse a catalog or see an array of them at a nursery.  These make fine plantings near shrubs, or under small canopy or open shade trees, even between large shrubs where they will get some shade during the heat of the day and provide winter color for several months.  Flowers fade to greens and bronzes when the stamens fall, but the petals and sepals can remain and become dry and papery for many months after bloom.  Foliage in many species and hybrids is often bold and showy itself.  Some leaves are large and coarse and heavily serrated on the leaf margins.  Other leaves are narrow in leaflets giving a finer texture and almost lacey effect to the clump.  Well drained good garden soil will give healthy growth and many flower stalks. 

Another great plant for winter are the species cyclamen and their smaller sized hybrid groups.  These are much smaller and more graceful than their larger florist counterparts.  Many of these are also fragrant.  The cool season display is showy.  Flowers in the species come in purples, lavenders, whites.  The hybrids expand the color palette to include reds, bicolors, many shades of purples.  Floral form is like a shooting star.  Flowers have reflexing petals that nod from the upright stems.  The species give hundreds of small blooms, most are fragrant.  Foliage too is showy.  Heart shaped leaves are often marked in silvery grays in many patterns.  The plants like rich well drained soil, much organic matter/humus added and moisture when growing.  They tolerate much shade and can naturalize and form colonies.

The wild and old fashioned freesias are a joy to any garden.  Sword shaped leaves arise after the first rains, eventually short flower stalks appear that bear the upright white to ivory blooms, many of which are flushed purple on the outside of the flower tube.  Sweetly fragrant blooms are noticable and enjoyed by any passers by.  These are very easy low maintenance bulbs.  Drought tolerant, they die down with the drying of the soil in spring, increase rapidly and form colonies quickly.   They can also reseed if happy and you almost never see these offered by any grower.  The ones available are the grossly large hybrids which come in a rainbow of colors, but the hybridizing effort has left them with only a hint of their parents’  fragrance.

Some other favorites for blooms in the winter garden include the flowering currants (Ribes spp.), manzanitas (Arctostaphylos spp.), Viburnum bodnantense Dawn/Pink Dawn, Prunus mume, Camellias(the new species and hybrids which are available featuring unusual foliages, growth habits, flower colors, and fragrances), and Silktassel (Garrya elliptica) is showy with long ct tassel like bloom clusters and dark leathery foliage.

Ribes sanguineum glutinosum comes most often in pinks, but there are whites, and reds.  Rounded maple like leaves grace this native shrub for sun to shade.  Flowers are individually small, but held in showy pendant clusters before the foliage emerges.  The plant has a pungent fragrance to it.  In coastal climates it is drough tolerant.  If fruit is produced, it is also edible.  Other species are R. speciosum , R. indecorum, R. malvaceum (the inland representatives which are very drought and heat tolerant).  R. specisosum is a favorite, with quite showy crimson lantern shaped blooms and very long red stamens.  Shiny dark glossy foliage is small, and the plant is wickedly spiny, perfect for barrier plantings in sun to shade.  The other species R. indecorum and R. malvaceum are white and red respectively and have shorter pendant clusters of blooms.

The manzanitas are a very large and diverse group.  All like good drainage and the uses in the garden are diverse.  Carpeting ground covers, higher ground covers, mounding shrubs, upright shrubs to small tree size are all to be had within the group and a bonus is the showy bark which is either peeling or smooth and reddish to purple.  The size and aspect of the way the foliage is held creates quite a textural difference among the types available.  Showy clusters of small urn shaped flowers in white or pinks come in winter to spring.  Some have showy colored new growth as well.  Although drought tolerant when established, they need regular watering until they grow deep roots to tap into deeper soil where water reserves are.

Viburnum bodnantense ‘Dawn’ / ‘Pink Dawn’ is an upright bush of easy care.  Flowering for a long time, it can begin in fall and continue into spring, blooming all winter if not to heavily frosted.  Spicy fragrant pink flowers are small, but in numerous clusters.  An easy care shrub of upright habit, prune to shape in sun to part shade, regular watering for best growth.

Prunus mume is the Japanese flowering apricot/plum.  It is one of the famous plants symbolic of winter in Far Eastern cultures.  It is originally from China, but most westerners know it as a Japanese garden tree, if they are familiar with it at all.  A clean spicy fragrane is notable from the profuse flowering.  The blooms are small, anc come in whites, pinks, reds on an upright or weeping tree (there is also a rare contorted form).  This plant needs a warm growing season to ripen the wood for best growth.  Sun will promote heavier flowering.  This plant can be extremely long lived.

The camellias most people know are large shrubs of medium to coarse texture with flowers in whites, pinks, reds, and variegateds and numerous floral styles.  Here I wish to mention the broad array of choice species which are for the most part, rare, but exceedingly fine, and the more unusual forms with unusual flowers, foliage, growth habits, and/or fragrance.  There are many new species available now.  Small foliage and profuse flowering are hallmarks of this group of new species.  The other end of that spectrum are broad, bold foliage plants with larger flowers.  With the smaller flowers, you often get an extremely profuse display of blooms.   There is also fragrance in many of these rare species.  Folages are also found to be most distinct and sometimes spectacular.  There are variegated leaves, margins, and central blotches, unusuall serrations on leaf edges, cup shaped leaves, lily shaped leaves, fishtail shaped leaves also!

One of the trends in hybridizing has been to introduce fragrance to the flowers.  This is quite apparent in many new hybrids such as Cinnamon Cindy, Koto no Kaori, Minato no Akebono, High Fragrance, Scented Gem. There are many others if you seek them out.  There are also contorted stem forms and weeping varieties.  Additionally there are the picoteed flowers and the black flowered group.  More on these in detail later.

Silktassel (Garrya elliptica) is a useful native bush with leathery dark green foliage and tassels of blooms in winter.  The male selections often have longer tassel flowers and if female plants are present, you get a crop of deep dark purplish berries in hanging clusters from summer to frost.  Good drainage, sun to shade, easy care landscape plant.

Besides the well known Hydrangea macrophylla and its many varieites, there are other wonderful species for the garden.  Among these are some favorites: H. arborescens, H. paniculata, H. quercifolia, H. serrata.  H. arborescens is a soft leafed species with wonderful rounded heads of flowers usually in white.  Grandiflora, Annabell, Hayes Starburst, and the new Incrediball, Invincibelle spirit (which is a repeating pink mop head type) are among the selections to be found.

In H. paniculata the clusters are pointed, conical and top long stems.  This makes a large shrub and can be planted in full sun.  Think of it as a lilac sized shrub, in bloom from summer to fall/winter.  Most are white cvs, but there are chartreuse (Limelight, and a new dwarfer version, and pinks like Pinky Winky and Quickfire.  They are sweetly and lightly fragrant when young and just opening.  Later the clusters age to papery bronzes and make good dry material.

H. quercifolia is the oakleaf hydrangea and is a large bold textured plant.  Wider than tall usually, it can grow to 8-10 ft wide if left untrimmed.  Here the clusters are long and sometimes archng, they can also be pendulous and weight the branches down.  Alice, Snowflake, Harmony(a dbl), Snow Queen are just a few of what is available.

H. serrata is like a smaller sized H. macrophylla.  I like it better for small gardens and containers.  Similar color range and lace cap or mophead clusters all smaller sized and on a smaller plant to perhaps 4 ft tall and wide.

A climbing hydrangea is H. anomala petiolaris and this can also come in variegated leaf form.  Lacecap flower clusters and neat heart shaped foliage on stems that closely attach to their support is what you get in this clinging vine.

A relative, Schizophragma, is similar in all but small details but the sterile flowers in the lacecap clusters are more heartshaped and a bit larger.  Several species are possible to locate.

As with all hydrangeas, they like an abundance of water and hymousy soil that is well drained.  Part shade suits them best, but H. arborescens, H. paniculata and H. quercifolia can take a good amount of sun if well watered.

New gardeners are often perplexed about the enormity of gardening.  There is much to it, lots to learn, things to try and adapt to your specific needs. 

Drainage is very important to plant health.  Here is a tip for checking and understanding drainage.  First dig a hole, perhaps a foot deep and as wide.  Fill it with water and then see how long it takes to drain away into the soil.  If it drains fast (under 1/2 hour, then you have good drainage.  If it takes a whole day and it is the dry season, then you have poor drainage.  Don’t be discouraged if you have poor drainage.  You can get by with planting things very high on a mound/berm so plant roots will not drown.  Plants need air in the soil structure besides water.  When you water, you fill most of those air spaces with water, then water percolates down into lower soil levels and air returns to those spaces.  Spaces in soil are very small.  Type of soil is also related to drainage.  Sandy soils will tend to drain fast, while silt and loam drain slower, and clay, adobe drain very slowly.  If you are located on a slope, then this all changes since the natural incline precipitates better drainage!

To improve soil structure (and drainage), you can add soil amendments such as fir bark compost, etc.

Drainage is important to plants since the roots need air to breathe and stay alive, so if they drown in winter rains, or with heavy watering, there is nothing alive to support the top growth and the plant dies.  Some plants are very sensitive to drainage.  Things like cherries, peaches & nectsarines, apricots, rhododendrons & azaleas, camellias, etc. are all particular about drainage.  It needs to be very good for optimum growth and performance of the plant.  If your site is poorly drained, you can plant these choices very high on mounds/berms to give roots the best chance to succeed.

In winter it is also important to check drainage.  a high water table is also deadly to plants of many types.  They grow fine in spring summer and fall, but the next year after winter, the plant is dead for no apparent reason.  Check drainage and a high water table as a possible cause.  In winter, do the same thing, dig a hole and then see if water percolates into it by the next day.  If you can see water puddling in the hole, there is a high water table, and you will either have to make appropriate plant choices which will tolerate this condition or else plant very high.

With the hear of summer upon us, we can enjoy our gardens and the garden fragrances. Here at this time are the flowering gingers. They have just begun to bloom this year(it has been a cooler year so they are later). You will find among these exotic looking plants, a tropical appearance, lush foliages, succulent leaves, and topping those stems are conelike clusters of flowers in white, pinks, yellows, oranges, and reds. These are very easy care plants. Just plant them and water them. If you fertilize them, they grow faster, lusher, producing more flowers and making the clump larger. Exotic fragrances come with several species and cvs. Think of those tropical fragrances of leis. Individual blooms are smaller, some have broad petals, others narrow and spidery, but all are showy atop those lush stems, looking like candles on a supersized birthday cake.(mature clump) Even though they are tropical, semitropical in origin, many are root hardy, grow them like cannas, gladiolous, etc. The tops die down with cold, but roots remain alive and push new shoots in spring, growing taller to bloom in summer, fall, winter, depending on type.
These make exquisite floral material for the vase. You cannot buy these from the florist generally. Partial shade to full sun(more watering) will give good results and the plants increase in size, faster if they are fertilized. But will grow and increase each year if soil is reasonably fertile and watering ample.
Most types are under the following genus. Alpinia (the shell gingers, some are edible), Hedychium, (the most common and the hybridizing efforts are mostly directed under this genus with amazing results now!, Zingiber, which includes the edible root ginger Z. officinalis and others like Z. myoga which is grown for its blanched stems, leaves for flavoring. Size and height of plants will vary according to the selection you have. They range from dwarfs of 1-2 ft to giants up to 12-15 ft
The variegated leaf forms are very showy without any flowers present. Striped in white or yellow, they stand out in any garden situation. If you want a little something different and permanent for that lush effect in the garden, try these flowering gingers.

Now(summer) is the time to start thinking about planting for a winter and spring display. You can take advantage of bulb mail order promotions and have the best selection at this time. If you plant things that bloom in winter now, they will be established for the coming winter season and begin to bloom in your garden during the cold part of the year.
There are a vast array of bulb choices from which to plant. Short bulbs that come first, short perennials too, and then the larger bulbs. Ordering now will give you a jump on the coming planting season. You can buy mail order for a wider selection or preorder from your favorite nurseries when their bulbs come in later. Gift certificates always work well for an immediate and unexpected present as well as a well thought out one! By choosing a color scheme, you can have a fantastic bulb display for the coming spring.
Planting winter blooming plants now is a great opportunity for enjoying the garden during the cold dark months ahead. If you choose from among the flowering shrubs and trees, you can have the cut branches in bloom for many years to come as they mature in the garden. You will cheer yourself up when things are dreary and if you share, you can cheer up friens too with a bouquet of blooms from your winter garden.
Daffodila/narcissus, cyclamen, muscari, tulips, hyacinths, crocus, galanthus(snowdrops), freesias(choose the species which are much more fragrant than the gross hybrids), ranunculus and anemones are all to be had and can be planted later when they arrive when the weather is colder.
Winter blooming shrubs and trees can be planted now, where they will continue to grow until fall dormancy. They can bloom soon after in winter if they are mature enough. Here think flowering quince (whites, blacks, pinks, yellow, orange, reds, variegated, singles and doubles, anc contorted stem forms.)
Wintersweet (Chimonanthus praecox) is a sheer joy for any garden, large or small. A big bush, you can keep it to size by cutting blooming branches in winter.
Winter honeysuckle bush comes in three forms. Lonicera fragrantissima, L. standishii, L. pupursii(a hybrid of the two species parents) all bear creamy white honeysuckle like blooms along the branches for a long time (begin in fall, continue until spring). Shrubs are stiff and arching, not impressive during summer, but oh what a joy for the winter! Easy care, LOTS of blooms, FRAGRANT and cutable for the vase.
Edgeworthia papyrifera is a daphne relative and bears nodding clusters of tube shaped flowers in creamy ivory tipped in yellow-orange
Also think of fruits(berries) and bark colors(stripebark maples, paperbark maples, etc.)(flaking and peeling barks) for brightening things up in winter.
Conifers shine during the winter season. Their needlelike or scale like foliages come in a broad array of greens, then you can move into the blues, grays, yellows and variegated tones. Choices are almost endless in their variety.
Evergreen foliage plants make nice foil as well and some are even more showy with variegated or colored leaves.

Heucheras and their hybrids heucharellas are some of the most versatile of plants for the garden and containers. They have a year round quality and are showy mainly due to their colorful evergreen foliage. Some have showy flowers, but they are show stoppers because of the recent hybridizing efforts. You can make an eye catching display in the garden, light up a border/edging or have spectacular container plantings! Foliage colors are so vivid, they are almost good enough to eat, (but don’t eat them, they are poisonous/nonedible). These are easy care plants. Just plant them (at the same depth as they are purchased) and water them in, you can lightly feed them after a few months for better growth, blooms. Deepest purples, some flecked, color neutral pastels and chartreuse, and bright yellows, oranges, mango, peaches, and metallic sheens are to be found in the foliages here. There are vivid variegated varieties too! And some have showy blooms in reds, pinks, white. (they have come a long way since your grandmother used the old fashioned coral bells as edgings to the rose beds.) These plants will grow in sun to a good amount of shade. (more sun, more water). The creative gardener can make floral pictures/mosaics using short colorful plants like these!

Some of the most often asked questions are about planting. “How to plant a ….” and “when do I do that?”
Here are some basic tips. If planting from ontainers, all plants can be planted pretty much at ANY TIME. They are going to grow either in the container or in the ground so why not plant them in the garden immediately? It is often mentioned the best time to plant is in spring or fall. This is true, but planting from containers anytime is fine, gardless of those two seasons. (it can even be done in winter, provided that the ground is workable and not saturated and muddy or too wet.
Things to observe when unpotting a plant.
Here the technique is to gently tap the top edge of the container on a hard surface to loosen the rootball from the container edges. The quick sharp tap will do this when you hold the plant upside down and tap it downward. Now look at the condition of the roots in the soil. Ideally there should just be some few roots starting to turn and the root ball is filled with young healthy (whitish and plump) roots. More often than not you will see circling roots. What to do? Well you MUST cut those circling roots. (They will NEVER untangle themselves if you do not either untangle them or cut right through them to break that circling pattern. Don’t be afraid of this. Any cuts into roots that you make will heal and produce many fresh new roots will grow outward from the rootball into the surrounding soil. If you are afraid to do this, just use an old knife or stick and cut through those circling roots about 1/2″ deep into the root ball. Remember to also look at the bottom of the rootball and cut across these roots too. Making an “X” across the bottom also about 1/2″ deep will enable the roots to heal and then to grow fresh new roots.
The reasons for doing this is that a plant cannot untangle itself once the roots begin to circle around. They will mature and increase in diameter and when the canopy/top of the plant becomes large, it will often just fall over since the roots are circled and cannot support the additional weight. (that is what happens to sapling trees when you see a younger tree just fall over after a few years). It’s roots were circling the root ball and were never cut, so when the top grew more and heavier, it just blew over in the wind, or fell down from lack of support during the soggy rains.
These basic techniques will work on most plants. There are a few exceptions and they will be discussed when the plants are highlighted in future subject topics.
If the roots are not densely matted and very crowded and circling, you may just be able to tease them open a bit and loosen the rootball and then plant.

Planting most things slightly high is beneficial. Soil will settle and go down with waterings, so higher planting will eventually get the plant at grade with the surrounding soil levels. For some plants that need very good drainage, you should plant very high on a wide mound/hill to allow for wet season higher moisture levels and also for poorly draining sites. Cherries, rhododendrons, azaleas are notable for needing much air in the root zone and if the roots are water logged, they can drown and die. Good drainage is very important to most plants.

Flowering dogwoods are among the finest ornamentals for the landscape. These are also trees which increase in beauty as they mature and provide a very dependable seasonal show of their blooms. Here are some of the recommeded later season bloomers. The dogwood family is a large one, and here we discuss the species Cornus kousa and its hybrids (C. x rutgersensis). All dogwoods like well drained soil. Remember, they come from a woodland environment with lots of humus in the soil and regular watering. A spectacular horizontal branching pattern is attractive at any time of the year, but especially so when the flat planes of branches are just covered in blooms! Again in fall, with the coloring of the leaves and those hanging fruits, the branching again plays a showy role in the garden.
These are smaller sized trees to perhaps 20 ft by 20 ft wide. Do allow for plenty of side spacing since a large part of their charm lies in seeing the horizontal branching. Thin delicate twigs with grayish bark are arranged in tiers and when covered in rain/dew drops or with frost/snow on them, they glisten like thousands of mini Christmas lights all over the tree. Individual flowers are tiny in a ball like cluster, the showy part of the bloom are the four bracts which are often star like since they are pointed. White is the basic color and there are also pinks available. Numerous varieites exist, and all are fine. Many are similar, but they have that quality of superior plant material inherent in them, so any variety you choose will be good. There are weeping and variegated forms as well. White and yellow variegations are to be found and several weeping selections can be quite showy when covered in those stars of blooms.
A soil rich in organic matter and with regular watering and good drainage are all that is needed. Dogwoods like sun to set flower buds but will tolerate a good amount of shade.
The Rutger hybrids are crosses of Cornus kousa and two natives, C. florida (the eastern dogwood) and C. nutallii (the western dogwood) The first available selections were from the C. florida crosses and very vigorous in growth and profuse in bloom. ‘Aurora’, ‘Constellation’, ‘Celestial’, Ruth Ellen, Stellar Pink are some of that hybridizing effort and available to the landscaper, gardener.
Newer are Starlite, and Venus, crosses with the western dogwood. Starlite is great for smaller sized areas since it is a narrow grower, and very upright in habit, still with horizontal side branching. Flowers to 5-6″ across. Venus is just lavishly gorgeous. Very large flowers to 8″ just cover the horizontal tiered branches in profusion. It is very vigorous too, perhaps to 30 ft.
C. kousa cvs. (there are many)
Big Apple had very large fruits
Blue Shadow has superior foliage in a very dark blue green and nice flowering
Gallilean is larger flowered and also very fine foliage
Gold Star has golden variegated centrally marked foliage and white flowers
Elizabeth Lustgarten is a weeper, perhaps a little more upright than some other weeping forms.
Kristin Lipka’s Weeping Variegated is a variegated foliage weeping selection, quite showy even after bloom.
the standard ‘chinensis’ and ‘Milky Way’ are older standbys and quite often mixed but generally all forms are nicely flowered.
Moonbeam has larger flowers to perhaps 8″
National is vigorous and more open growing
Radiant Rose is a newer pinker selection with a nice growth habit
Satomi is a pink selection
Weaver’s Weeping is a nice pendulous form, and can repeat blooming.
Wolf Eyes is a showy white variegated form which tolerates full sun with ample watering.
There are many other selections available
Another later blooming species is C. capitata and the closely related C. omeiensis.
The species are generally good and the forms ‘Mountain Moon’ and ‘Summer Passion’ are quite good.
C. cap. Mountain Moon is lush and showy with yellowish large 5-6″ bracts and lush green foliage
Summer Passion has smaller finer textured glossy leaves, bronze purple in winter, coppery in new growth in spring, summer. Flowers are pristine white and star like, and the growth habit is unique as well. Upright narrow branching, main side branches arch slightly and the branchlets are pendulous and hang down in sheets. When in bloom, this one is spectacular since the blossoms face you.
All dogwoods like regular water, and good drainage. Sun is better to promote heavy flowering. Fertile soil is appreciated, and if you soil is poor, then supplement with fertilizer and a mulch.