Winter colour?

[Nicos]

Seeing the falling of spectacularly coloured autumn leaves, I'm noticing that I don't have much other colour in my garden/veg plots.

I'm thinking of introducing a few more plants/ flowers/ veggies maybe( ?) to try to avoid a dull garden over the winter....anything to hold on to the uplifting feeling of being surrounded by natural colour.
If , by doing this, also helps feed insects and bees I'll be even happier!

So....looking at your gardens - where is your winter colour and is there anything else you think would work?

[burnie]

I've got some nice green cabbages....................................................

[nickdub]

Not mega-colourful, but easy to grow, tough and the last thing to flower in my garden every year and which the honeybees love is common ivy. Still a few flowers on some of it now.

Apart from that may I suggest plants with colourful berries, such as cotoneaster horizontalis. The bees love that too when it flowers in the Spring. Yesterday I was watching two blackbirds enjoying eating the red berries from it.

[Bren In Pots]

My garden doesn't have much colour in winter a Dogwood, some ivy and a few variegated shrubs plus the Black Tuscan kale looks rather pretty.

[burnie]

I like the dead leaves that hang on to the Beech hedge too. White bark on the Silver Birch, Holly, Ivy and Yew all look nice too in the winter. Gorse flowers round here through the winter too.

[JanieB]

I have two holly trees. One produces red berries, the other orange. My garden is still a work in progress so there will be more winter colour plants next year.

[Jungle Jane]

I bought a viburnum x bodnantense a few years ago to get a bit of winter interest & a Daphne odora Rebecca has a lovely scent,bees like that one,when you get the first bee coming out after the cold weather. It"�s evergreen & looks good all year for low maintenance design of garden,plants with different leaves grouped together look good,some leafy shrubs can grow wide though,check out maximum size of plant My nemesia flowers through the winter,it"�s in a sheltered spot next to the house. I sowed some rocket a while ago,that usually flowers in the winter,I thought I saw a flower on it today but it was bird poo

[Chestnut]

I have red and green kale? Blueberry stems are quite a pretty reddish colour too.

[Plot70]

I have left a bolted bulb fennel in.
I got about 4 or 5 bulbs that were OK from the packet of seed.
I have got a fire thorn in the front garden that holds onto its orange berries all winter unless it gets cold enough for the birds to eat them.
Bladder senna holds onto its pods all winter too and also has a long summer flowering season if copised in spring for pea sticks.

[rary]

The colours of winter in the garden for me are red and blue, a red nose and blue hands caused by the cold

[Plot70]

My blueberries were red for a very short time this year before the frost whipped the leaves off ready for me to do the pruning.

[FB.]

Seeing the falling of spectacularly coloured autumn leaves, I'm noticing that I don't have much other colour in my garden/veg plots.

I'm thinking of introducing a few more plants/ flowers/ veggies maybe( ?) to try to avoid a dull garden over the winter....anything to hold on to the uplifting feeling of being surrounded by natural colour.
If , by doing this, also helps feed insects and bees I'll be even happier!

So....looking at your gardens - where is your winter colour and is there anything else you think would work?

Late reply but better late than never.....

In flower in our garden recently:
Fuschia (half hardy)
Jasminum nudiflorum
Solanum laxum
Cyclamen hederifolium
Cyclamen cilicium
Cyclamen persicum (half-hardy)
Ivy

Flowering soon:
Galanthus
Helleborus niger
Cyclamen coum

[Nicos]

Good to have suggestions!
now the leaves have fallen its looking pretty bleak out there colourwise....

[FB.]

Good to have suggestions!
now the leaves have fallen its looking pretty bleak out there colourwise....

Unfortunately it's a bit late to be planting bulbs/corms/tubers of snowdrops or Cyclamen and any that you do find have probably been out of the ground so long that they're dead.
You could buy potted plants in-growth but they're more expensive and often seem to stop flowering the moment they're planted (transplant shock?).

Sometimes end-of-season clearance means you can pick up potted plants for pennies.
Occasionally some mail-order companies (or private individuals on auction sites) offer bulk snowdrops bare-root with shoots.

[Nicos]

^^^ thanks for that...