After an exuberant display of flowers during spring and summer, the fall and winter mo
nths leave gardeners longing for sunnier days. A way to help overcome the winter blues is to plant winter interest in your garden. Most gardeners know about adding texture, berries, branch color and bark, to a garden, but often flower seed heads are overlooked as a winter interest.
Leaving seed heads standing in your garden provides shelter and food for birds and insects in your yard, but seed heads also provide visual interest. There is a quiet beauty when frost lies upon a seed head displaying its delicate wispy patterns. Even those spider webs covering the seed heads put on a display like tiny garlands, then add frost… and those threads sparkle like crystals in a breeze. So while you’re combing through the garden catalogs during February, look for perennials and annuals which produce interesting longstanding seed heads and distinctive structures.
A few to consider….
Anethum graveolens– Dill – Zone 2-11
Aster cordifolius– Blue wood aster (many other species) – Zone 3-8
Coreopsis grandiflora – Tickseed -Zone 4-9
Celosia cristata – Cockscomb – Zone 3-11
Echinacea purpurea– Coneflowers – Zone 3-9
Eupatorium maculatum – Joe Pye Weed – Zone 4-9
Foeniculum vulgare – Fennel- Zone 4-9
Phlomis russeliana- Jerusalem sage- Zone 5-9
Pot Marigolds – tall – Zone 3-10
Monarda – Bee balms – Zone 4-9
Muhlenbergia capillaries- Pink Muhly Grass – Zone 6-9
Ornamental grasses (all varieties & zones)
Rudbeckia hirta– Black-Eyed Susans – Zone 3-7
Sanguisorba- Burnets – Zone 3-8
Solidago – Goldenrod – Zone 5-9
Zinnia elegans – Zone 3-10
he Season for Madrona 
madrone tree sports a different wondrous shape from multi-stem octopus trees that have re-sprouted after a fire to grand “girthy” older beauties. The leaves are sclerophyllous – thick and sturdy broadleaf leaves that conserve water during hot summers. Second year leaves drop off during the summer, adding yellows to the bark chip forest floor, while younger leaves provide a canopy of green light all year-round. The leaves also provide a holiday-style contrast to the red pitted berries that droop from branches in the fall.
