Do winter blues got you caught up? Here are my favorite plants for winter color in USDA 5. I will keep this post short and sweet. Just like how we want winter to be.
Your best bet at winter interest is a cold hardy succulent that will turn colors with the temperature. One of my favorites is the Chicks and Hens. Here is the Gold Nugget. This particular succulent loves to burn bright reds in the middle of winter. This one is colorful from late November and usually holds its color until Spring. I’m in the process of growing an entire patch of this for winter interest. You can see this bright red from almost a mile away.
The Manzanita! The particular plant is evergreen all year! It is also firewise. Once established, it is super hardy and needs almost no water. In the early Spring it will bloom with pink flowers. When it comes to the Manzanita, you can’t go wrong for an evergreen shrub that flowers. The best part is that the flowers are very frost resistant to our late Colorado Spring freezing temperatures. These plants put on a beautiful pink water drop like flower. This picture is taken at the beginning of February and the green foliage lasts all year!
If you are looking for flowers. The first bloomer in a zone 5 area is the Snowdrop. This particular flower will pop around early March in Castle Rock at 6400ft. In Zone 5b, it can creep out around February as shown below in mid February. I love to plant, as this is one to give the bees some early food. I plant this in all areas of my yard. Full sun, part sun, and almost full shade. In my yard I will have Snowdrops dropping for 3 months here in Colorado with all the spots I plant it.
After the Snowdrop blooms, you are going to see some Crocus flowers without a doubt. This particular flower will come out around March. It will even pop in the middle of a snow storm. I’ve recently started populating these in the edge of my grass. Once I move to a full Grama Grass pathway, I’ll populate this in the entire walkway, as it will do well in a yard of bunch grasses and so many more areas.
Right after the Crocus come, so will the Pasque Flower. This flower will come up in late March/early April. Once it is finished blooming the seed heads looks like beautiful cotton whisks in the early morning or late light. This is one bulb that also grows naturally in Colorado. You can see these on hikes in mid Spring on the Front Range. I purposely drop their seeds on my hikes. I’m sure the bees don’t mind.
After this flower. You will get your regular Front Range flowers and the season will be in full force shortly thereafter. I have so many more plants for winter interest. I will update this post as I capture photos of them. In the meantime, some of my favorites are Buckwheats, Sedums, Pineleaf Penstemon, Winter Heath, and the oh so fragrant infamous Daphne’s!