The Winter Garden #4

By Ms Sherry

The Winter Garden #4

Just as we add texture to liven up our interiors we can use texture to liven up our gardens. Texture becomes even more important in winter when so many of our shrubs and trees are bare. It can be added easily with trees with interesting shapes and bark (both in their color and character). Trees, therefore, can become the backbone of our winter gardens. When you consider choosing a tree for its bark the coral bark maple (Acer palmatum ‘Sangu Kaku’) immediately springs to mind as its bark turns from a beautiful green to a vibrant red as winter deepens. There are many other Japanese maples (Acer palmatum), especially the smaller ones, which add immeasurably to the garden because of the growth pattern of their twigs and branches. One that is especially beautiful completely naked is ‘Waterfall’, with is cascading branches.

There are many trees whose claim to fame during winter is the fact that their bark virtually peels off. Many of these stunners are birches (Betula spp.). The river birch, Betula nigra, has a wonderful peeling papery bark that is reddish brown to orange. The tree actually takes on a shaggy appearance. A river birch can get to 30 to 40 feet high and 20 feet around.

Crepe myrtles, especially Lagerstroemia ‘Natchez’, also sport bark that peels off. Crepe myrtles are the darling of the winter and the summer garden; when the bark of the Natchez crepe myrtle peels off during the winter the trunks are mottled-looking with accents the color of a cinnamon stick. During the summer it has a great display of white flowers and the fall display of yellow orange leaves is just as beautiful, making it an ideal four season tree for the garden. The Natchez crepe myrtle gets to be 30 feet tall and wide.  There are crepe myrtles in just about every size and flower color, many with bark as interesting as the Natchez.

Two other trees whose bark provides texture are the dogwood and the silverbell. The bark of the dogwood tree (Cornus spp.) looks like the hide of an elephant and the shape of its intricate branches, bare of leaves, is a wonderful sight against a winter sky. Halesia carolina (H. Tetraptera), the silverbell, has a distinctive striped bark and shedding twigs is also a good choice. The silverbell is a good tree for a small garden, growing 30 - 40 feet tall and 20 - 35 feet wide.

Bark is not the only way to add a spark to the winter garden–sometimes it is the growth habit of a tree. For winter interest, adding a Harry Lauder’s walking stick (Corylus avellana ‘Contorta’) with its marvelous contorted branches and twigs and the catkins all over it, is almost a necessity. This deciduous tree gets 8 to 10 feet tall and 12 feet wide.

There are also many shrubs whose bark and growing patterns add interest to the winter scene. One is the kerria japonica, or the Japanese rose. Once the leaves are gone, the arching branches are bright green adding a nice shot of color to the garden. In the spring yellow/orange flowers appear. Another shrub with interesting bark is the deutzia. Deutzias come in all sizes from dwarf (Deutzia Crenata) to those that grow 10 feet tall (Deutzia x magnifica—showy deutzia). Deutzias are at their best when mixed with evergreens. Even the combination of the bare canes of a hydrangea offers a neat contrast against the shiny leaves of the camellias getting ready to bloom.
I just took my daily stroll through the neighborhood with my Golden Retriever Belle and made a special point of looking at the bark and the shapes of the trees and the designs the branches make against the sky. Bark and the shape of trunks and branches can make your garden glow – perhaps not in the same way as the bloom of camellia japonica—but in their own way these elements are just as dramatic.