Creating Structure In Your Winter Garden

For those of you gardening aficionados who, like me, subscribe to every gardening magazine available, you have probably at some time heard the phrase “the bones of the garden.”  Upon examining the meaning of the phrase, I have come to understand that it simply means creating structure in a garden.  

The importance of structure in my garden became apparent to me the first winter after creating a perennial border at our first house.  The spring and summer prior the border was overflowing with colorful and exuberant flowers.  Once the first heavy frost cut everything to the ground, I was left with nothing but what appeared to be an empty patch of dirt.  It was then I began to contemplate how to create interest all year long.

I discovered this can be done in two ways.  The first is with permanent “hard” structures such as arbors, benches, sculptures, bird houses, water features and stonework creating paths and walls.  These features of interest create focal points that remain long after all the flowers are gone.  Used in combination, they can draw visitors into and through a garden. 

An arbor placed strategically in an area to welcome visitors into the garden can be the starting point of a stone path that leads visitors through the garden past features such as a bird house, bird bath or pond where they can watch the wildlife these features attract.  Finally, the path can lead to a bench where visitors can rest and contemplate the garden.  Low stone retaining walls at various points throughout the garden also add structure and emphasis to the bare perennial beds.

The second way structure can be added to the garden is with plant material that is of interest during the winter months.  This includes not only evergreen trees, shrubs and perennials but also varieties that have interesting features such as exfoliating bark, contorted branches and interesting architectural forms.

Evergreen trees and shrubs such as Cryptomeria, ‘Little Gem’ magnolia and ‘Nellie R. Stevens’ holly can provide “walls” that create a sense of enclosure to the garden. Smaller evergreen shrubs such as “Steeds” holly or boxwood pruned into conical shapes offer vertical interest to an otherwise flat area.  ‘Sky Pencil’ holly is often used for vertical height to add interest toward the back of “pansy beds” in large commercial plantings.  Evergreen shrubs with prostrate habits such as ground-cover juniper for sun or Japanese plum yew for shade can cover slopes or provide low growing interest at the front of a border.  Evergreen plants with striking forms such as weeping yaupon holly or Hollywood juniper make wonderful focal points in the garden. 

Deciduous trees and shrubs with interesting features such as the exfoliating bark of river birch or ‘Natchez’ crape myrtle also create great focal points and are striking when up-lit for night-time viewing.  Plants with interesting architectural forms such as the contorted branches of the “Harry Lauder’s” walking stick, weeping willow and of course, Japanese maple often stop visitors in their tracks.

A combination of man-made structures and architectural plants makes for a dynamic landscape.  These features together can make for “great bones” in the garden.

Master Gardener Julie Foster runs the company Gardens By Design, LLC.