BORING YARD BUSTERS FOR FEBRUARY

This edition completes my year long series of columns on creating year ‘round interest in our gardens.  Like I have always said, if we simply visit the garden center once a month and buy one thing we will eventually have a garden of year ‘round interest.  If we do this for several yeas then we will have a truly enchanting garden that will give us years of enjoyment and inspiration.  Let’s get started on this last month.

TREES: 

Still in bloom from January are the witch hazels and the variety of Viburnum called “Dawn”.  Both of these small trees have exquisite fragrance as well.  And both of them can grow in either full sun or full shade.  How is that for adaptability?  My Cornus mas is finally opening with its delicate spider-like yellow blooms which will hang around for almost 6-8 weeks in our cool winter/spring weather.  The catkins on filberts and birches and our native alders are all starting to hang down and while not necessarily beautiful they are still interesting and well worth the space in our gardens.  As much as I love the early blooming flowering almonds, apricots and peaches, they are so prone to brown rot that it is not worth the effort to keep them growing.  Take a trip to the drier side of the state if you want to see them in a garden.

SHRUBS:

Camellias will continue to impress us as they move from the fall blooming sasanqua varieties to the japonica and hybrid ones.  There are so many choices of camellias that it would be impossible to list my favorites.  They come in early, mid and late flowering varieties which means as early as December and as late as May.  And they can be almost tree form to sprawling or weeping.  Newer selections can be hardy all the way down to minus 10 degrees so don’t be afraid to plant them.  Their glossy evergreen foliage is a nice contrast to our conifers.  In the deciduous department is a delightful shrub called Winter hazel, not to be confused with Witch Hazel.  Winter Hazel is a graceful mounding shrub with butter yellow blooms in February and sometimes March.  It prefers a bit of afternoon shade and rich soil.  Mine has outgrown its location several times and I have cut out many of the larger stems with it filling back in quite nicely by the end of the season.  In other words, it will take a lot of pruning abuse.  If you are lucky enough to have a filtered shade and good draining location then you should plant a winter Daphne.  Its fragrance is absolutely incomparable.  I have a very healthy one by my front door which unfortunately is completely devoid of blooms this year.  I am not sure why it is barren but I am thoroughly disgusted with it.  And of course no winter garden would be complete without a few drifts of winter blooming heather.  Heathers can stay in bloom for up to 6 months, longer than any other tree or shrub out there.

PERENNIALS:

February is high Hellebore season with the orientals and newer niger hybrids decorating gardens all over the northwest.  They come in doubles and singles, bicolors and freckled and a range of colors from white to smoky black and with the exception of occasional aphids and root weevils, these perennials are a piece of cake to grow and hardly ever need dividing.  Plant them in shade and forget about them.   Another favorite shade perennial is Lungwort which is starting to bud up now with small tubular flowers that can be both pink or blue on the same plant.  This is an easy perennial to grow and one that more gardeners should have in their gardens.  Look for it on the benches this month.  Of course February is the month for primroses and my all time favorites are the double English ones.  A new series called Bellarina is looking quite promising with several colors to choose from.

BULBS:

Two bulbs are coming into bloom in my garden this month, snow drops with their delicate white nodding bells and winter aconite with its bright yellow, 3 inches high buttercup-like blooms.  Both of these are such harbingers of spring that my garden would not be complete without them.

This is certainly not an unabridged list of interesting plants but it is a good start for those of us that want to have something to excite us every time we venture out into the garden.  Use this list as a springboard as you continue to create a garden of 4 seasons of interest and every year add a few more embellishments just for fun.  Before you know it, your garden will be anything but boring.