You'd never guess from looking at the picture at left that this landscape is in desperate need of more plants. It's one reason designers should pay more attention to the winter landscape.
When everything is in flower, you just don't notice anything else, and flaws in the garden design are overlooked. But when the leaves are off the trees and the shrubs, it gives you a chance to really study the structure of your garden.
The image at right is of the same part of the garden, taken from a slightly di
fferent angle. Nevertheless, in winter you can easily see that you should a) ask the neighbors if you can plant a few shrubs in their yard behind the bench and b) plant an evergreen to the left of the bench, along with a little more groundcover.
The additional plants would "enclose" the bench a bit more, making the entire area almost a room unto itself in a very small space. From spring until fall, the Doublefile Viburnum provides the "roof."
In this back yard, the spring vignette of flowering iris, alliums, deutzia, peonies, and chives is quite charming. If you look hard, you can also see a witch hazel at the rear that's not yet big enough to have real presence.
In the winter, however, this landscape would definitely
benefit from some additional garden structure. Perhaps an evergreen on either side of the witch hazel -- although they'd have to be narrow and upright to work in the space available. I've often thought the deutzia hedge ought to go, but every time I see it in flower, I can't bear the thought of taking it out.
The chives were simply planted along the front border because I simply needed a quick place to move them. They could certainly be distributed to friends and neighbors, and an evergreen edging would give this bed a far more pleasing appearance year-round.
So -- the lesson is to take a hard look at your garden in winter when you can really see what's going on and decide where you need to move, remove, or add new plants to make the overall design more effective year-round.
(click on images for larger view)
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