HAVE you ever looked past a flower on a plant?
Have you ever thought about the stem colour on a plant?
The berries, rose hips even the bark.
Many of these plant features are often overlooked when choosing plants for your garden as we tend to focus on flowers.
So, when it comes to planning or choosing a plant for your garden, think about all aspects of the plant.
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Create year–round garden interest or plants that will complement the few flowering plants during the winter period.
Here are a few plants that are worthy considerations starting with the Coral Bark Maple Acer palmatum 'Sango–kaku,' or Senkaki maple.
This plant has bright coral pink branches that are exposed during the winter months which are a little hard to see during the rest of the year but over the winter are a standout.
To complement the maple, combine Helleborus (winter rose) around the base in drifts.
Cornus alba 'Sibirica' has fantastic red stems.
If you cut this species of Cornus to the ground just as it starts to flower in spring, it will grow all new shoots that over the winter months will expose multiple bright red stems.
You can also get green and yellow stemmed varieties of this species.
Other plants that have winter interest are those that produce berries or rose hips.
Rosa rugosa, a species rose, looks great with its bright orange seed hips that stand out on a cool sunny winter's day.
Viburnum opulus 'Notcutt's Variety', has great red berries that look like red currants.
Chinese beauty bush, Callicarpa with its purple berries or Snow berry Symphoricarpos sp with white berries are other plants to consider.
If you're after a tough plant, something that you would like to flower at the end winter in part shade and a little bit unusual, Mahonia sps is the plant for you.
With their lovely sulphur yellow flowers in winter followed by blueish berries, Mahonias also have interesting leaves, some varieties are quite prickly but worth considering for their toughness and interest.
Magnolia doltsopa syn. Michelia doltsopa is another beauty.
An evergreen large shrub producing magnificent large creamy white flowers with a fruity citrus–like scent they too can flower well over the winter months.
Crepe Myrtle (Lagerstroemia) has a beautiful smooth trunk that you can easily see over winter, great autumn foliage colour and large bright flowers over the summer months – this plant is an all–rounder.
There are many, many more plants you could use for the purpose of creating winter interest, so next time you're thinking of plants for your garden look beyond the flower of a plant, consider the stem, branch and bark colours and don't forget about the berries.
Tatanka Gardens have many of these plants available in the nursery or growing in the grounds.
