There’s no getting around it, the garden in winter can be a bleak place. Or… It can be a planting paradise, full-to-bursting with lush evergreens and stunning winter-bloomers. In our eyes, a good garden is a balanced garden. It’s all very well your garden looking show-ready in spring and summer, but if it’s sad and forlorn in the dark depths of January – which, let’s be real, is precisely when most of us want our gardens to cheer us up – then what’s the point? With that in mind, we’ve compiled a list of some of the best winter plants to add colour, structure and interest throughout those bleak winter months.

Jump to:

• Trees
• Climbers
• Perennials
• Shrubs
• Colour
• Texture
• Focal points and framing devices
• Best winter gardens to visit

Winter plants

There are a huge number of plants that provide good winter interest, including trees, climbers, perennials and shrubs.

Trees

Good trees for winter interest include both lush evergreen varieties and deciduous trees whose bare stems can add architectural (and often colourful) appeal. If you want a nice evergreen tree, then you can’t go far wrong with a strawberry tree, with its glossy, laurel-like leaves, urn-shaped white flowers and funky red fruits. The ‘Viper’ maple is a deciduous tree with distinctive, striated bark redolent of (unsurprisingly given the name) a snake’s skin.

Climbers

When it comes to winter-flowering climbers, few plants come close to winter jasmine. A relatively small, shrubby climber, Jasminum nudiflorum (to give it its proper Latin name) bears a profusion of sunny yellow blooms on vivid green stems from January right through to March. We also love the ‘Freckles’ clematis, with flowers looking like something Jackson Pollock would be proud of, as well as winter honeysuckle, with its sumptuously-scented, white and flaxen flowers.

Perennials

Hellebores, hellebores, hellebores… What else is there to say? Hellebores are *the* winter-flowering perennial, with their elegant nodding flowers appearing in abundance between the end of November and the start of spring. Boasting a range of painterly hues, from snow white to ruby red, these plants exemplify winter class. Honourable mentions have to go to pansies (though these are technically perennials, they’re typically thought of as annuals), cyclamens (also rather charmingly known as sowbreads or swinebreads) and winter aconites.

Shrubs

Shrubs have a reputation for being, dare we say… Boring? But this is entirely unfounded, and in fact, some of the best winter garden plants are, indeed, shrubs! Take the ‘Midwinter Fire’ dogwood, for example. With its bare stems blazing in a range of fiery hues, these shrubs are most effective when planted en masse in a dense block, ready to warm the cockles of your heart (or rather, blast them clean off) on a cold winter’s day.

Winter garden ideas

The key principles of garden design include everything from height and depth to the inclusion of focal points and framing devices. Additionally, you can think about patterns and repetition, as well as, of course, colour and texture. Below, we’ve explored some of these core concepts in more detail.

Colour

Colour is sorely needed in the garden during winter, and we like to utilise a holy trinity of evergreens with dense foliage, architecturally interesting bare deciduous trees and shrubs, and the odd bright, early-flowering perennial. The bright stems of the dogwood, for instance, look brilliant contrasted against the dark, glossy foliage of sarcococcas (sweet box). Add a few bright white hellebores to the mix and you’ve got yourself a lovely canvas of winter colour.

Texture

Here, we’re talking about both visual texture and tactile texture. For the latter, consider something like a paperbark maple, whose glorious peeling bark is not dissimilar to chocolate shavings. Visually speaking, opt for a few evergreen ferns and heucheras, with their lacy and rippled foliage. Ornamental grasses and trees like cedars and hollies can also add another textural component to your garden throughout the winter months.

Focal points and framing devices

Cast your mind to any garden you particularly like, and the chances are it has at least one focal point it guides you towards. Whether you choose something inorganic like a sculpture, water feature or seating area, or decide to plant a feature tree, focal points help give your garden a more coherent and focused feel. If you’re thinking about the latter and want to go down the organic route, then think about how the tree will look in winter. Something like the RHS-award-winning Acer palmatum 'Sango-kaku', with its intense red branches, is a fantastic option.

A framing device can be thought of as anything that focuses a person’s attention on a particular horticultural scene or tableau. They can be formal and precise – the addition of an ornamental archway, for example, or a garden gate – or more freeform; an artfully-planted hedge, for instance, can gently nudge a visitor’s attention in the direction you desire. Focal points and framing devices are especially important in winter, because there’s less “going on”, so to speak, as compared with spring and summer. This means you need to work a little bit harder to generate that same kind of impact, and these two nifty tricks make it a much easier task.

The best UK gardens to visit in winter

We’re fortunate, here in the UK, to be blessed with a number of truly fantastic winter gardens (both in the traditional glass house sense, as well as gardens that simply look stunning at this time of year). We’ve listed some of our very favourites below, so feel free to take inspiration when designing your very own winter garden. You’ll find that certain plants crop up again and again!

Mottisfont Abbey, Hampshire

With its array of bright colours and floral fragrances gently perfuming the frigid air, the winter garden at Mottisfont Abbey, near Romsey, is a must-visit. Featuring mahonias, sarcococcas, dogwoods, Tibetan cherries and much more, this garden, established in 2010, is quickly becoming a gardening fan favourite.

RHS Garden Rosemoor, Devon

Another garden to feature colourful dogwoods and mahonias, the winter garden at RHS Rosemoor also includes daphnes, snowdrops, winter jasmine and witch hazel, all adding to the sense of seasonal magic that this garden evokes. With plans to expand the garden and add more wonderful plants, including both Japanese maples and birches, this space is only going to get better, moving forward!

Sir Harold Hillier Gardens, Hampshire

Another garden found near Romsey, in Hampshire, the winter garden at Sir Harold Hillier Gardens features more than 800(!) plants selected for their winter interest. With its extensive bed of cyclamens, this four-acre space also features the usual suspects of dogwoods, witch hazels, birches and willows. This is definitely a garden to return to throughout the year – in total, the gardens span a whopping 180 acres, so there’s plenty to get your teeth into.

Brodsworth Hall, South Yorkshire

We had to include a northern representative in this list to try and balance things out a bit, and Brodsworth Hall is certainly a worthy nomination. With hundreds of thousands of snowdrops and winter aconites, and striking, clipped topiary that looks particularly impactful at this time of year, the garden at Brodsworth manages to blend the formal and the organic with graceful aplomb.

Final thoughts

Winter doesn’t have to be a time of gardening woe. And hopefully, having read this, you’ll know exactly how to create a garden space that performs just as well during the colder months as it does in the heart of summer. So what are you waiting for? Get your wooly hat on and get out there! Whilst you’re here, why not check out the 10 garden jobs we’d recommend doing this winter.