January I

January in the Pacific Northwest offers blooming flowers, scent, leaves in a variety of colors.  No matter how gray or drizzly or damp it might be we never stop gardening, and we never stop enjoying our gardens.

Above are two galvanized, and two aged pottery, containers that I planted and used in a garden at the 2011 Northwest Flower & Garden Show.  In one, an evergreen huckleberry (VACCINIUM ovatum) sets off a stunning CORNUS sanguinea 'midwinter fire,' a bloodtwig dogwood with orange branches:  at the base of the shrub the color is pale as sherbet, but as the color moves along each branch it becomes increasingly bright and vibrant, ending in a burst of red-orange.  

Beside this are a hellebore, fern and candytuft (IBERIS).  The five petaled flower and dark green leaves of the hellebore dominate, and the ferny foliage and the tiny leaves of the candytuft, which is just beginning to offer a few small white flowers, complement.  

Behind them the shades of white on the containers brighten the plantings, which are dominated by a dense green.  The peeling paint reveals deep orange clay, which connects with the dogwood.

This grouping could be set outside and would look almost the same.  There is a front and back to this planting, so it would be good at the entrance to a house, set against a wall, providing interest late fall through winter.

I would consider this a seasonal container planting.  The dogwood quickly would outgrow all but a quite large pot, so in the spring take out all the plants and put them in the ground and re-do the pots for summer.

These next two pictures are of the same grouping, one that is viewed from all sides as it sits in the middle of a garden in a parking strip.    

A fern fills the smallest container.  In the other two are brown CAREX, hellebores, winter pansies and a chartreuse coralbell, HEUCHERA 'lime rickey.'  The ruffled pale green leaves of the coralbell are a nice contrast with the dark hellebore leaves and both are "lightened" by the bleachy, skinny grass.

  The CAREX and hellebore are repeated in the garden, and beside the containers are more winter-interest plants:  an ABELIOPHYLLUM (white forsythia), covered in almond-scented flowers in January, and a dwarf quince, which will offer coral blooms in late February.  And climbing through both shrubs and into the containers is an evergreen CLEMATIS 'avalanche,' which will bloom in March.

The colors of the containers, orange and white, are the colors of the garden, and in winter, when many plants have lost their leaves or disappeared, the pots make a bold statement as an architectural feature.  They elevate the plants, making it much easier for us as we hurry through the rain or cold to see the plants, to appreciate the color of the flower, the shape of the leaf, the play of a bare branch against an evergreen.  We might even pause, even hesitate in spite of the weather, to enjoy.