Bring cool season colour to your garden with these winter favourites...
Discover The Top 5 Winter Flower Favourites
Bring cool season colour to your garden with these winter favourites
Hellebores
Hellebores are one of the shining stars of the winter garden. Grown for their beautiful nodding flowers in shades of cream, lime green, pink, rose and burgundy, they make excellent groundcover plants for shady areas beneath deciduous trees.
Try planting Helleborus ‘Winter Sunshine’ beneath a weeping Japanese Maple. Just as the maple loses all of its foliage ‘Winter Sunshine’ bursts into bloom. It displays gorgeous pink buds that open to pretty cream blooms, which take on tints of pinky red as the season progresses.
The foliage is rather unusual too, with beautiful silvery green leaves.
Camellias
Camellias are another highlight of the winter garden. The flamboyant Japonica Camellias shine during winter and spring and come in a range of colours from snow white to pink and the deepest of reds.
I love ‘Brushfield’s Yellow’ with creamy yellow flowers from mid-July to the end of August. Or make a statement with ‘Black Magic’ with alluring semi-double black-red flowers. ‘Volunteer’ is another stunner, with gorgeous bi-coloured deep pink and white flowers and a long flowering season from April to September.
Native Plants
I come from a long line of native plant lovers and this is a season when many Australian beauties also shine. I love hardy Correas with pretty bell like flowers in a variety of colours and forms that appear in the heart of winter and spectacular Grevilleas and Banksias, which provide a feast for the birds.
I’m also a fan of the beautiful Hardenbergia violacea (Purple Coral Pea), a stunning native climber with deep evergreen foliage and masses of purple flowers that light up the winter and spring garden. And who could forget the sunny parade of wattles of every shape and size, which fill our gardens with sunshine later in the season.
Annuals and Bulbs
Nothing brings a splash of colour to the winter garden like vibrant annuals in decorative pots and hanging baskets. Turn to Pansies, Violas, Primulas and Cinerarias for outdoor colour through the coolest months. Position them close to the house or where they can be viewed through windows, so you can enjoy their cheery colour from inside.
Early flowering daffodils and jonquils bring a splash of sunlight to the garden through late winter, so buy them potted in full bloom to decorate outdoor tables and if you haven’t already done so, make a note in the diary to get your winter-spring flowering bulbs into the ground next autumn.
Pieris
There aren’t many plants which bridge the gap between late winter and early spring, but Pieris ‘Christmas Cheer’ fills the brief perfectly.
Its name is a little out of place in the southern hemisphere, but this old-fashioned beauty is a timeless addition to any garden, with pretty clusters of pink lily of the valley like flowers through late winter and early spring.
It also boasts attractive deep green foliage and coppery red new growth. Grow it among other acid loving plants like Camellias and Azaleas or make a feature of it in pots in an Asian style garden.
