Container Gardening: Winter Containers

Yesterday, before today's snow, I replanted all my planters in the front garden for the winter. I love having something beautiful to look at when most of the garden is sleeping. For inspiration this year, I looked at some photographs I took at the Missouri Botanical Garden (http://mobot.org/) last winter.

The first pot has a yellow twig dogwood as its base. From there, I added boughs of white pine and dried hydrangea blossoms from a Pee Gee hydrangea in the garden.

On the front porch is an urn whose plantings change every season. For winter, I have cut branches of winterberry surrounded by dried statice and white pine branches. Also, added are some large pine cones from a collection my husband and I have gathered over the years.


















Near the lamp post is a small pot atop a column which has Douglas fir clippings, some faux winterberries, and pine cones. Since this pot is in a more exposed position than the one on the porch, in the the past I have found that real winterberries do not hold up as well.




















The last pot I did is in front of the living room. In the center of the pot are branches cut from a red twig dogwood surrounded by more Douglas fir branches. A few pine cones were added also.

The pots will add interest to the garden until spring comes and are easy to do. You can use cuttings from your own garden, buy some from local nurseries, or from White Flower Farm (http://www.whiteflowerfarm.com/) who sells a wonderful 14 pound box of winter greens.