Plants that look good in winter: Part II

More evergreen plants: These photos were all taken in January.

Hebes: There are lots of different varieties of these plants, but not all of them look good in winter. My favorite is good old faithful Hebe buxifolia or Boxleaf Hebe. This picture was taken in January following really cold (12 degree) weather in Olympia.  They look like  big green pastries. Last winter after the heavy snow, a lot of them in my neighborhood got splayed out, but they recovered nicely. I have a Hebe Rededge that is doing alright in my yard as well, but I've seen some miserable looking ones around town. They really look better with a good prune after flowering, making a tighter, more compact plant. I had a Tricolor Hebe for two years in a sunny spot, but it got killed every winter and came back if I chopped it to the ground, but I got tired of doing that. These hebes are a nice substitute for boxwood.

I came across a juvenile Berberis darwinii - Barberry plant all decorated up for the holidays- no mistaking those thorns. I liked the leaf size and the compactness of it, and the fact that it's an evergreen. These plants can get up to 6' tall but can be sheared back to be more compact.

This is a Golden Hinoki Cypress  and I have a real crush on these plants. Any kind of Hinoki will do, but I love the golden highlights of this one. I believe this is a Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Aurea' which gets 8' - 10' at maturity. This Hinoki was about 3' and would cost around $80. There are many Hinoki varieties, but my favorites are the Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Crippsii' with similar yellow foliage but more fernlike sprays and the even more beautiful Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Fernspray Gold' which gets 5-10' at maturity. All feature the Hinoki brand of flattened, twisted seashell branching, perfect for an Asian garden look.

Here is another one - 

Ceanothus is very common in our region, but the variety you most often see in nurseries is 'Victoria'. The leaves are big and flat and remind me of scotchbroom when it's not in bloom. A better variety is 'Julia Phelps' which has darker green leaves that remind me of very fine crochet. Here is a closeup of the leaves.  

If anyone in your family has bee allergies, you don't want this plant close to the house. When it blooms (for a month) it's covered with purple-blue flowers and is a bee-magnet. There's a hedge of Ceanothus in Olympia on the westside that is a knockout when the flowers are blooming. I'll be waiting to take its picture and post it in May. It's one of those plants that people usually just let turn into a big amorphous shrub (see photo at left), but it looks really nice sheared like a boxwood or an Ilex. If I was a more patient person, I would plant a hedge of these things in my front yard. 

I came across this container planting of Leucothoe Rainbow and Bergenia which still looked great after all the bad weather, and it didn't get a lot of insulation in the planting box which was about 18" tall.