Plants for a Beautiful Winter Garden

Of course, you spend more time outdoors in the summer than in the winter… But your garden can be just as wonderful in the winter, too! In the winter garden, frost, snow, and ice create the most beautiful scenes.

Evergreen shrubs and hedges, plants with brightly colored berries, shrubs and trees with colorful branches and trunks, the silhouettes of spent flowers, seed heads, and ornamental grasses… All of these add plenty of ornamental value to your garden, even in winter!

And we haven't even mentioned all the winter-blooming plants yet!

Plants for the Winter Garden

Evergreen shrubs (green framework)

Evergreen shrubs add structure to your garden. Even when all other plants have finished blooming and trees and shrubs lose their leaves, these plants remain beautifully green and well-shaped. These evergreen shrubs are often referred to as the green framework of your garden. They’re also ideal for creating contrast with bare and colored branches, ornamental grasses that have finished blooming, or the withered stems and seed heads of perennials.

Learn more about evergreen plants

Winter-flowering plants, shrubs, and trees

We often think of spring, summer, and maybe even fall when it comes to flowering plants… But even in winter, there are quite a few plants that bloom beautifully! Good winter bloomers include witch hazel (Hamamelis), snowball bush (Viburnum), mahonia (Mahonia), hellebore (Helleborus), winter violets (Viola), winter heather (Erica), and if you have more space, the winter cherry (Prunus subhirtella autumnalis).

Check out all of our favorite winter-blooming plants, or our overview of Plants That Bloom in February.

Early-blooming flower bulbs

Many flower bulbs don't bloom until spring, but there are also some that bloom very early. Examples include snowdrops, winter aconites, grape hyacinths, star hyacinths, and early-blooming tulips.

View All early-blooming flower bulbs

Plants with striking berries

In addition to flowering plants, you can also add color with berries! There are many beautiful plants that bear berries in all kinds of colors. Not only do the berries add a lot of color to your winter garden, but birds will quickly find their way to your garden too! It’s always a wonderful sight to see birds feasting on berries, rose hips, crabapples, and fruit that you leave hanging on the tree.

As far as we're concerned, these are the 11 The Most Beautiful Berry Plants for Birds

Trees and shrubs with colorful branches or striking trunks

You can add even more color to your winter garden with the colorful branches of plants such as dogwood (Cornus), willow (Salix), and Japanese maple (Acer palmatum ‘Sangokaku’). In large winter gardens, you sometimes see entire planting beds filled with Cornus alba, with its bright red branches, or Cornus sanguineum ‘Midwinter Fire’ or ‘Winter Beauty,’ with their beautiful orange-red branches. A stunning sight! But you can also achieve this effect in a small garden with just a few of these plants—for example, against the backdrop of an evergreen hedge.

Striking tree trunks, such as those of the white birch (Betula utilis), sycamore (Platanus), paper maple (Acer griseum), and Tibetan cherry (Prunus serrula), are also worth seeing in winter.

Check out these 7 striking trunks for a beautiful winter garden.

Ornamental grasses that stay beautiful for a long time

Sturdy ornamental grasses, such as fountain grass (Pennisetum), silver grass (Miscanthus), and pampas grass (Cortaderia), remain beautiful for a very long time. While other ornamental grasses collapse over the course of winter, these varieties retain their shape and their plumes. This creates a stunning sight when they’re covered in a light dusting of frost, snow, or ice—especially when the sun illuminates them beautifully!

This Ornamental grasses grow upright and often retain their shape

Plants that have finished blooming and have an unusual shape

Strangely enough, even plants that have finished blooming are valuable in the winter. They provide food and shelter for animals, birds, and insects. However, their shape and structure also make them very ornamental. In addition, they highlight the transience of nature. So don’t prune them! At least not until spring.

Beautiful perennials that provide structure and shape to your winter borders for a long time include flat thistle (Eryngium planum), globe thistle (Echinops), feather thistle (Cirsium), red coneflower (Echinacea), black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia), poppy (Papaver), stonecrop (Sedum), fennel (Foeniculum), and phlomis (Phlomis).

Fragrance in the Winter Garden

Many winter-blooming plants have a wonderful scent. A true winter garden simply wouldn’t be complete without fragrance. It’s not just eye-catching flowers that draw attention—a delightful scent does too. For example, plant a fragrant winter-blooming plant at the entrance to your garden, by the back door, or along the path or sidewalk.

I bet people walking by will stop for a moment and wonder what smells so good.

Hamamelis (witch hazel)

One of the most fragrant plants that bloom in winter is the witch hazel, with its distinctive, almost spider-like flowers. Not all varieties have the same intensity of fragrance. In particular, Hamamelis mollis, Hamamelis ‘Pallida,’ and Hamamelis ‘Arnold Promise’ have a strong fragrance.

Viburnum bodnantense (snowball bush)

Viburnum bodnantense is a well-known snowball bush that can bloom all winter long, producing tubular flowers ranging in color from soft pink to white-pink. This Viburnum has a wonderful fragrance. However, the scent isn’t always very strong, so you may not notice it as much on windy days.

Chimonanthus praecox (winter sweet)

A winter-blooming plant that you see more and more often is the melon tree, also known as winter sweet. Its blooms are somewhat reminiscent of witch hazel. The flowers are yellow with a red center. After flowering (from December to February), the oval leaves sprout again in a fresh green color.

Daphne (pepper tree)

Less well known is Daphne, also known as the pepper tree. It is an evergreen shrub with beautiful soft-pink flowers. Its scent is quite strong but pleasant. Depending on the variety, Daphne blooms from January through March.

Camellia sasanqua

Camellia sasanqua (autumn-blooming camellia) is another evergreen shrub with fragrant flowers in the fall and winter. Unlike the well-known Camellia japonica, its flowers have a delightful fragrance. However, the flowers (and leaves) are smaller. These camellias begin blooming as early as November and can continue blooming well into February.

Even More Fragrant Winter-Blooming Plants

Other wonderfully fragrant plants that bloom during the winter months include: Sarcococca, winter honeysuckle (Lonicera fragrantissima and purpusii), Skimmia, Mahonia, and Edgeworthia.