While your hay bales are cooking, I wanted to pay my respect to my favorite winter warriors of the plant world.
These 4 beauties give you plenty of evergreen love through the winter and the cool spring weather. They stay charming all-year, but they often go unnoticed once the spring dazzlers take-over the show.
Starting with the brown grass (Carex buchananii or
‘Leatherleaf Sedge’). This one gets planted for colorful fall containers. Some people cut them back in February to encourage the fresh new leaves, but I let my old Carex blades mingle with the new growth.
To the right we have a lovely little Pieris (Pieris japonica ‘Cavatine’), this little evergreen stays a small 2’x2′. I like any variety of Pieris for spring because those little flowers are about to burst open and keep our cool weather bees fed when they can’t find any other nectar.
Down-in-front, our native dry soil lovin’ Wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens) is the real deal. Crush a leaf and find that heavenly wintergreen aroma. The evergreen leaves turn a rusty red through the cold months and late summer they start producing big red berries.
Finally, the last plant on the left is Huechera (Heuchera ‘Silver Scrolls’). This little evergreen comes in a wide variety of leaf colors. The flowers are insignificant, however on some varieties the flowers bloom red (also why the common name for this plant is Coral Bells) and the hummingbirds can’t get enough.
So now my 4 favorite winter color busters, I’ll tuck you in with a fresh layer of spring mulch before the daffodils and cherry blossoms steal your thunder. Until next year, when I notice you all over again.
The Urban Gardener 