Plan a Landscape For Year 'Round Enjoyment

By Jos Van Hage

 Living in the north we tend to have long winters which are a good thing to keep in mind when planning a landscape.

You want a landscape to look good year round so when choosing plants you want plants that have different attributes other than just foliage and blooms.

Deciduous trees and shrubs  that have textured bark, or colored bark, or those plants that have  berries, look good year round. Also look at the shape of a tree when there  are no leaves on the tree because then the branches and the way they are  shaped can make an interesting focal point.

A beautiful shrub that grows very well in Prince George is the red or yellow twigged dogwood. The bark of the branches or twigs is a bright yellow or a bright red and really stands out in the white snow.

Another  shrub with interesting bark is the winged burning bush. This shrub is  excellent for year round interest. The corky bark is ridged and when it  snows the snow sticks to the branches giving it a beautiful look. In the  fall the foliage of the winged burning bush turns a bright red making a beautiful display.

The Corkscrew hazel (Corylus avellana ’Contorta’) is another shrub with good winter appearance as it has interesting shaped branches. The shiny barked branches twist and curl and in winter they have  catkins that hang off of them making it a real showpiece.

Other trees that bear berries over the winter months if the birds do not eat them first are Mountain Ash and Choke Cherry. Shrubs that have berries are the Mountain Cranberry, and the Sea Buckthorn. For a higher yield of berries plant a few Cranberry bushes in close proximity to each other and in the case of the Sea Buckthorn you need both a male and a female plant, planted near each other for pollination.  

I always like to have some evergreens in a landscape as they look good year round. Spruce trees look beautiful and when there is a recent snowfall they look even more beautiful. Pine trees are another nice looking evergreen year round.

Most junipers are low growing and make year round ground covers; however, when there is a high snow cover they become buried and are not seen over the winter months. 

Cedars are another group of evergreens but sometimes these can be damaged over the winter when there is heavy snowfall. To keep these looking nice and not loosing their shape they should be tied or wrapped with burlap over the winter months so that the snow does not bend and/or break the branches.

If you are looking for something a little different in evergreens you can purchase or create your own topiaries or bonsai shaped trees. They make a great focal point in the landscape and are a little different from the everyday evergreen.

-Jos

Jos Van Hage owns two Art Knapp Garden Centres in the Prince George Region:

• Highway 97 North at Aberdeen
• Highway 16 West across from the Bon Voyage Plaza

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