Gareth Carter: How to bring colour to your garden during winter

In Whanganui, cyclamen will grow outdoors in the garden or in pots.

As we officially come to the end of autumn and approach King’s Birthday weekend, we are again at the change of season - this time is the official arrival of winter.

While the shortest day is only a few weeks away, the darker mornings and nights make us look for more colour in the garden.

One of the most prolific flowering plants is the bold, bright, colourful cyclamen. They are a very popular colour plant to grow during the winter months. They start throwing flower buds as the weather cools in March and continue in mass profusion through into September.

As a result of selective breeding, a range of different cyclamen are available. In addition to the bold, bright, single colours of red, violet, white and many shades of pink, there are some with frilled flowers, butterfly double-type flowers as well as variation in leaf marbling (colour).

Cyclamen can be generalised into two main sizes - the miniature or smaller type and the larger-flowered and -leaved type.

Cyclamen are a bulb although they are most commonly available as a potted plant. They die down and go into dormancy during the hot summer months, emerging into growth as the cooler, damper autumn weather arrives. As winter dwellers, they do not need a lot of sun and are very happy in shady positions with little or no direct sunlight.

They are versatile for use in the home garden. Cyclamen do best in a well-drained situation. If the soil becomes saturated, the bulb can be prone to rot. Wet soil combined with a lack of air movement can cause botrytis.

In Whanganui, cyclamen will grow outdoors in the garden or in pots. They are also regularly used indoors as flowering houseplants and then planted outside in the garden when the flowers die off. When kept inside, the flowering season is usually shortened by the heat of being indoors.

Growing in pots is probably the most popular use for cyclamen, where they can provide bright, cheerful and happy colour throughout the cold, dark winter months. Over the winter they will grow successfully pretty much anywhere in pots, from a sun-drenched north-facing patio to the south-facing front door which doesn’t even get a ray of sun.

Cyclamen can be grown in hanging baskets where they make an excellent centrepiece surrounded by pansies or other winter flowering annuals.

To get maximum flowering from cyclamen they should be fertilised with dried blood (sold as Tui Flower Booster). Yes, it is what it sounds, the dried blood from the meatworks. This product is extremely high in nitrogen which these plants love, not to be confused with blood and bone which is not as suitable. For the best results, flower booster should be applied at the time of planting and every few weeks subsequent. It is also the preferred fertiliser for pansies and polyanthus.

Shrubs

In the shrub garden, we have a number of plants that present stunning flowers or foliage in these cold and darker months. Shrubs are good in the garden, offering structure and form and, in their particular flowering season, they provide colour.

Having a selection of winter flowering shrubs in your garden is a sure way to provide cheer on a dull winter’s day.

Many camellias are flowering now, offering colour. There are varieties with flower colours ranging from white to pink to reds with varying petal forms and features. One of my favourite winter flowering plants is Camellia Yuletide, which is flowering now. Camellias offer year-round structure in a garden as well as a long flowering period, lending themselves to be used in many types and styles of gardens. To grow camellias well, they are best provided with an abundance of summer moisture, relatively cool summers and soils that are rich in organic matter.

They can be grown successfully all over New Zealand and perform well in Whanganui. If you take care to provide suitable soil conditions, shelter from strong winds and provide some light shade, they will thrive. Soil conditioning with the addition of peat moss will improve the texture of the soil and increase the acidity. Always use acid fertiliser to feed these plants and never use garden lime.

Ericas are another large genera with many varieties. Some good ones flowering now include Winter Fire and Ruby Shepherd.

Leucadendrons are another great range of shrubs that provide winter colour. The blooms make excellent cut flowers that last for a long time indoors in a vase.

Nandinas’ foliage deepens to some spectacular colours as the cold sets in. Nandinas are one of the most popular shrubs for a number of reasons. They have a tidy, compact growth habit that makes them good for small and narrow gardens. They grow well in full sun or shady conditions, windy coastal conditions and pretty much all soil types. They don’t need trimming or pruning and look good all year round.

There are a couple of excellent cultivars. They include Nandina Pygmy which forms a rounded shrub with a tidy compact habit. Its leaves are initially in green and yellow tones, but darken to a dramatic red as the weather cools through autumn and into winter. It can be used in gardens, borders, patio pots, and containers. The leaf colour is actually more intense if the plants are kept a little hungry.

Nandina Gulfstream has more finely divided and pointed leaves than Nandina Pygmy. It is highly decorative and also valued for its wonderful autumn colour, which intensifies to a brilliant red in winter. Easy care and tolerant, Gulfstream makes the ultimate minimal care garden. It looks wonderful planted in a group.

Coprosmas are similar to the nandinas in that their feature is the intense leaf colour change that takes place in the cooler weather. Some good ones to look out for include Pink Splendour, Evening Glow and Scarlett O’Hara.

Coprosmas grow in most soil types and almost any position from shade to full sun. They need protection from harsh frost (-1C and below) so are not so good in colder climates like the Central Plateau but grow well throughout Whanganui.

So if your garden is looking dull, check out some of these plants to offer colour through the winter months. I haven’t got space to also mention grevilleas, proteas, polygala, coelonema, astartea and hellebores, which all offer vibrant colour through the winter.

For more gardening information visit www.springvalegardencentre.co.nz

* Gareth Carter is general manager of Springvale Garden Centre.