Evergreen Shrubs Keep Your Winter Landscape Beautiful

October 13, 2015 | By webadmin

Here in Dallas we’re lucky to enjoy a 12-month gardening season; we can plant pretty much year-round. Yet, our winters are just chilly enough to send many perennials and trees into dormancy. If you don’t plan your landscape carefully, you could end up with pretty bare foundation plantings for several months through winter; leaving you feeling, and your garden looking, pretty drab. By choosing a few key evergreen shrubs to plant around your landscape as a backbone, you’ll keep things looking nice all year long.

Hollies are excellent evergreen anchor plants in the winter garden. Plus, they sport beautiful berries.

Remember that not all plants enjoy the same amount of sunlight - many can’t take our hot afternoon sun, while others won’t thrive in too much shade. Be sure to select the right plants for the right place when choosing evergreens.

Here are a few of our favorite evergreens for the Dallas area:

Pittosporum: This wonderful shrub is not only evergreen, but great for shaded spaces in the landscape. Varieties come in varying shades of deep solid green to pale green variegated foliage. Depending on the space you are trying to fill, choose from varieties that grow anywhere from a diminutive four-feet, such as ‘Wheeler’s Dwarf’ to varieties that grow to more than six-feet tall.

‘Wheeler’s Dwarf’ has glossy green clusters of foliage that cover the plant and resemble bouquets of leaves.

Did you know? Pittosporum are sometimes referred to commonly as “cheesewoods”.

Nandina: That’s right, nandina. “But nandina is so old fashioned!”...We hear you, but it’s hard to deny the good looks and versatility of this study plant. Especially in our severe Texas climate. Some of the new varieties of nandina available on the market now might change your mind about them. ‘Firepower’ grows to only 30-inches tall and wide and turns bright red through winter.

‘Firepower’ offers bright color each season against a beautiful stone wall. Photo credit Monrovia.

Nandina ‘Obsession’ is a stunning colorful variety that grows to only 3-feet tall. Read more about it here.

Boxwood: Love a more formal garden look? Boxwood shrubs create a more traditional formal frame in the landscape when they are sheared and shaped. But, you can also allow them to grow into their natural rounded form for a soft-looking foundation planting. Rounded, glossy green foliage pops in winter gardens and creates a wonderful backdrop to cool season color such as pansies, violas and colorful cabbage. Depending on the variety, boxwoods will grow from three-feet to eight-feet tall, but can be sheared or tip pruned to keep it at the size that best suits your space.

Gray Leaf Cotoneaster, Cotoneaster glaucophyllus: One of the most unique, waterwise shrubs for our area is Gray Leaf Cotoneaster. It sports tiny, soft, gray-green foliage that offers unique texture in the winter garden. Through summer, it is covered with tiny white flowers that are followed by bright orange-red berries. Migrating birds will appreciate the snack! Makes a great backdrop to other water-wise perennials such as oxeye daisy, irises and even spring daffodils. More on Cotoneaster in this blog post.

With some strategic evergreen plant choices, your landscape can stay green & gorgeous through all the seasons; even winter!