Show #52/7413. Gardening In Fall And Winter

Containers - Extend Seasonal Color

Eric thinks there are other ways of extending seasonal color. For example, containers are a great fit. They work with any size garden and there's so much we can do with them. They're a great fit for folks that have a small space, on their decks, their patios, containers are a great option for folks that have just limited space or maybe even limited mobility. Eric loves what Bill has done with one container in particular, the centerpiece is an evergreen. We think about extending color into the fall and into the winter and making the pillar, if you will, be an evergreen, a Cryptomeria, in this instance is a great choice. And, there are many others, for example camellias work great. Bill feels camellias, really any evergreen that's going to be hardy in their zone is a candidate for what you see with this Cryptomeria, that’s a centerpiece. They start with tropicals, of course, during the summer, but once they get to fall they're going to transition into evergreens that provide a fall presence and a winter presence, plus will then carry into the spring, meaning they will get three seasons. It's just less change they have to do. Under plant with fall plants like ornamental cabbage, vinca, even snapdragons. At Biltmore they can change out for the winter planting, then will change that out again for the spring planting. It means they are getting a lot more bang for their buck with one plant. And Eric likes to think the container itself is a wonderful color addition. When noticing the cobalt blue containers that are spaced throughout his area mixed with some of the reds, they really add a sense of color, a pop, if you will. Even if you just have a dark corner of the landscape where you want to put a container, but might not be sure about the plants one can almost guarantee that you can add color just with the planter itself.

One thing Eric tried in containers a few years ago was yellow twig and red twig dogwood. The bright red or yellow dormant twigs look fantastic in a container. And, that's something one can actually plant in the Spring, then use the bloom during the late spring, early summer and then you're counting on that red or yellow twig during the fall going into winter. Being able to couple that with some really nice plants in an understory role is awesome. More importantly, once you get some snow on those red and yellow twigs, that too really makes it stand out. And, if you don't have red or yellow twig dogwood, you can basically just find dormant limbs and paint them yourself, then put those in the container. A lot of people do that. Or they'll find pine cones and paint them. At Bill's house they used pine cones with peanut butter and bird seed to help feed the birds during wintertime. You can find a lot of things in your landscape and use that for your containers. Clippings from other evergreens work well, put those in, whether they have berries, striking foliage, even exfoliating bark. Any of these items can be successfully used in containers during the fall.