Text by Hélène Baril – Horticulturist, speaker & author
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November has arrived. Gardens are prepared to face the cold, and balconies will have to wait for the return of sunny days to brighten up our outdoor space again. But what if it were different and your pots transformed into true winter scenes that would amaze you throughout the cold season?
How to create a winter garden
Select from your containers those that can withstand frost and winter weather. Avoid terracotta pots and thin plastic pots that will crack in the cold. Instead, opt for wooden, sturdy plastic, or metal containers.
If the chosen pots have hosted summer floral arrangements, try to preserve the soil and roots of the plants by only cutting the aerial parts of the latter to provide excellent support for the stems that will be inserted to create your winter arrangements. For new containers, simply fill them completely with moist soil and compact everything firmly.
Nature, a source of inspiration
When planning and creating your winter containers, let yourself be guided by the nature around you.
Gather here and there some colored branches from trees or shrubs, dried flower stalks from perennials in your garden as well as grasses and annuals collected at the end of summer, tasty small fruits that, once well soaked in sugar by the cold, will delight the winged wildlife, and a few green and dense conifer branches for the containers, that's all you need to brighten up the front and back yard.
Step by step
After a bountiful and fruitful harvest, remove the foliage from the ornamental stems to highlight all their attributes and cut their ends at an angle to facilitate planting. Plant the colored shrub branches and flower stalks deeply to create a natural and well-balanced arrangement. Play with heights to give volume. Then, plant the slightly inclined conifer branches around the edges to accentuate their arched shape, which will create movement in your arrangements. The grass stems and well-sized inflorescences will be added at the very end to fill in any vacant spaces.
Pro tips
After each step, take a step back, rotate the pots, and rebalance your arrangements if needed.
Which plants to choose for creating winter flower pots?
Here are a few plants that are easy to find in the garden or in the fields and will beautify your balcony all winter long.
Trees and shrubs:
- Cornus
- Cotoneaster
- Hydrangea
- Ilex X meservea
- Rhus typhina
- Sambucus
- Viburnum
Perennials and annuals:
- Achillea
- Astilbes
- Cimicifuga
- Echinacea
- Echinops ritro
- Liatris spicata
- Perovskia atriplicifolia
- Rodgersia
- Rudbeckia
Don't forget the grasses, the fertile fronds of ferns, and native or naturalized plants such as: phragmites, cattails, milkweed, and evening primrose.
Happy winter gardening!
Tips and advice
