Freed from numerous gardening tasks, winter is the one season where gardeners can sit back, relax and simply enjoy their gardens. Shrubs with ornamental fruits in particular are visually stimulating, and provide needed food for wildlife. Trees and shrubs with fruits in vivid shades of reds, purples and oranges, stand out for great distances so that the animals who depend on them through the lean days of winter can easily spot them. Many varieties of viburnum, another native shrub, have berries ranging in color from deep pink to bright blue. The barks of some plants can make a dramatic impact on the winter landscape adding color or textual interest.
Tree bark can also add texture.
In summer-time one never really knows how beautiful are the forms of deciduous trees. It is only in winter, when they are bare of leaves, that one can fully enjoy their splendid structure and design,'' wrote Gertrude Jekyll, the English garden writer in the early part of the 20th century. Weeping trees, such as weeping willow, and the weeping forms of crabapples, cherries and maples can be structural centerpieces in garden beds this time of year. And as incredulous as it may seem, it is even possible to have flowers in the garden in winter. Although difficult to establish initially, winter flowering hellbores have become popular garden plants in recent years.