Mild winters are the saving grace when you live in a climate where summers are a little too long and often too hot for comfort. In some regions, winter is a season of ample rainfall and cool temperatures that can be enjoyed in the company of numerous garden plants. Although many plants do slip into dormancy where winters are mild, there are plenty of evergreen trees, shrubs, and even perennials, as well as hardy annuals that will keep the garden vibrantly alive with greenery and flowers through the slow season.
If you are developing a new landscape, winter may not be slow at all. In many mild-winter climates, autumn is the preferred planting season for perennials and evergreens large and small. When planted in the autumn, these plants will benefit from cool temperatures and winter rains. By the time hot weather returns the following summer, they are comfortably settled in with strong, deep roots established in the soil. In addition, some perennials, such as daylilies and coreopsis, are best divided in autumn when they become crowded after several years in the same spot. When divided at the right time, by spring they will be well rooted and ready to bloom.
The Elegance of Evergreens
Where winters are mild, landscapes offer design lessons in contrast. Several of the most popular warm-season lawn grasses, including Bermuda, centipede, and zoysia, spend the winter in dormancy in warm climates. In their dormant state, they appear as a buff brown carpet instead of a swath of green. Rather than dismiss a dormant lawn as unattractive, you can use its texture and neutral color to your advantage by framing it with a broad band of evergreen groundcover plants, such as bugleweed, English ivy, liriope, or pachysandra. Or, plant an evergreen magnolia in the lawn and see how a dormant lawn sets off its large, glossy green leaves.
Another option is to edge a dormant, beige-colored lawn with a sculpted bed of small evergreen shrubs neatly dressed with a dark brown mulch. Dwarf boxwoods, Japanese hollies, evergreen azaleas, and other broadleaf evergreens thrive where winters are mild. Or use needled evergreens, such as junipers or mugo pine to create a similar effect.
Willing Winter Bloomers
If you have acid soil and partial or filtered shade to accommodate them, camellias can be counted upon to color up winter in mild climates. Many varieties bloom best in late fall, after the weather has cooled down and you are likely to be spending more time in your yard where you can enjoy their large, rose-shaped, white, pink, or carmine blossoms.
In woodland areas, consider growing cyclamen around the base of the trees for the off-season charm of their little winged flowers, and let spring come early with the blooming of evergreen hellebores. Evergreen leatherleaf mahonia is a mainstay in many gardens with mild winters, both because it holds its foliage year-round and because its yellow flowers appear before winter has come to an end.
Add fragrance to your winter garden with witch hazels. These woody plants can be grown either as shrubs or small trees. Even one of these filtered-shade loving plants, stationed among larger deciduous trees, is enough to provide delicate yellow flower color and a pervasive perfume in the season when it's least expected.
Hail Half-Hardy Annuals
In any mild-winter climate, there are a handful of cold-hardy annuals waiting to be discovered for wintertime entertainment. Consider planting dusty miller, dianthus, flowering cabbage and kale, pansies, and snapdragons. You can find them in garden centers as autumn bedding plants in areas where they'll flourish long after autumn has come and gone. They may bloom tittle during the shortest days of winter, but will provide great color again in early spring. When in doubt about the staying power of not-quite-hardy plants, such as snapdragons, plant them in a sheltered place. A wall or building can absorb heat during the day and warm nearby plants at night. Such a sheltered spot also shelters plants against damage from harsh winter winds.
In mild-winter climates, you can also use winter to practice and refine your outdoor seed-sowing skills. Annuals like larkspur and poppies should be sown in winter. Neither is a good candidate for transplanting, because of their low survival rate, yet both are easily grown from seed sown outdoors in late autumn or early winter. Unless every seed germinates and the seedlings are terribly crowded, wait until early spring to thin them. Invariably, a small percentage will be lost over winter to hungry rabbits or root rot in cold, wet soil.
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