Yes, Virginia....there really is Winter Bloom
by Linda Anson

Despite the urging of many a garden magazine article in the past several years to plant four-season, year round gardens, by the time the summer ends, I'm exhausted and ready for the respite that Mother Nature provides us. Some plants continue to perform well into the fall with no help from me, and Mother Nature puts on a colorful display with all those leaves in October, distracting me from the fading of my gardens. And then, the holidays are upon us, and I remain much too busy with all that preparation to worry about how "four seasoned" my gardens are. Nevertheless, after the rush of the holidays, when winter sets in for real here in Virginia, my thoughts return to the gardens, and I begin looking for the first peeks of jonquil foliage through the bits of snow we have from time to time.

And so, to satisfy this urge to begin anew as soon as possible, I confess I have succumbed to the urgings of those magazine articles. Little by little I've added a "winter" blooming plant here and there, modest destinations for a winter's walk, to see the miracle of Mother Nature even during her season of rest, and to be cheered by the courageous blooms of those hardy plants.

Here are some shrubs to consider for your winter walk destinations.

Witchhazels - Hamamelis virginiana The native habitat of this large shrub/small tree is Canada to Georgia, and west to Nebraska and Arkansas. We are apt to find this plant while following streams through our natural wooded areas. However, there are now several readily available cultivars to consider for your garden areas. They prefer moist, acid, well-drained organic soils and siting in full sun to part shade. These cultivars are the result of a cross between Hamamelis japonica and H. mollis, called the Hamamelis x intermedia series. They grow to 15-20' high and wide, and are probably best treated as a small tree to better show off the flowers and fall foliage.

• 'Arnold Promise' was introduced by the Arnold Arboretum. It has clear yellow fragrant flowers with a reddish calyx cup, each petal almost an inch long, blooming anywhere from late January/February into March.
• 'Diane' has copper-red, slightly fragrant flowers and rich yellow-orange-red fall color.
• 'Jelena', also sometimes listed as 'Copper Beauty', is described by Michael Dirr* as "excellent in flower and from a distance glows like copper; each 1" long petal is red toward the base, orange in the middle and yellow at the tip, sweet but faint." It has a rich orange-red fall color as well.
• 'Sunburst' has lemon yellow, scentless flowers in January and February. Described as vigorous and vase-shaped. Dirr reports that it may hold some of its leaves into the winter, obscuring some of the flowers, but that the flowers are "produced in abundance".

Fragrant Wintersweet, Chimonanthus praecox, is a large, multi-stemmed shrub. Its size may be limited by the severity of the winter, as the zone range is generally considered to be (6)7 to 9. It has lustrous dark green leaves that turn yellow-green in the fall. The flowers are "transparent yellow on outside grading to purple in the middle", each flower almost 1" across and the whole extremely fragrant. The flowers bloom over a long period depending on the winter, often from December to January/February. The shrub is adaptable to a variety of soils, tolerates full sun to partial shade and requires good drainage.

Spicebush, Lindera benzoin, a native from Maine to Florida, Texas, and Kansas, usually grows 6-12' high and wide. It performs best in full sun to half shade, and in moist soil areas. Foliage is light green changing to yellow to golden yellow in the fall. The flowers are yellow, appearing in March-April.
It's a nice addition to the border or for naturalizing, as on the edge of a wooded area.

Fragrant or Winter Daphne, Daphne odora, is a 3-4' evergreen shrub, blooming primarily in February-March. The fragrant, rosy-purple flowers last a long time, and this shrub is a good choice to use along a walk, near an entrance. The plant is considered by some to be rather fastidious, and I confess it took me three tries to find a "happy" place for this one. It prefers light to medium shade, moist, well-drained, close to neutral soil, and some protection from winter sun and wind. A lovely plant, worth the extra effort to find or create the right site.

*Manual of Woody Landscape Plants, by Michael Dirr, revised 1998

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