Planting for Winter Beauty
With the air cool and crisp, another beautiful Minnesota fall is upon us. As the leaves are turning colors of soft golden yellows and bright, vibrant reds, it is time to plant for winter beauty. There is still time to get everything planted and established, before the really cold weather sets in, to give your yard some color while everything else becomes brown and lifeless.
Although the variety of flowers to plant in winter is more limited than in warmer seasons, it’s possible to plant flowers in early winter before the ground freezes. Glory of the Snow has star-shaped petals that poke out of the ground in late winter and early spring. The bulbs are planted in the fall and each one produces one stem that grows up to nine inches with a flower in pink, blue, or white. Crocus is an annual that has grass-like leaves and blooms in late winter in shades of white, yellow, and purple. The bulbs need six weeks of temperatures below 45 degrees to form flowers. Some other flowers that will bloom when there is snow on the ground include camellia, pansies, hellebores, and white forsythia.
Even though hardy shrubs and flowers usually don’t bloom for a long period of time, these winter blooms provide splashes of color to brighten up the otherwise gloomy winter season.
