Text Box: perennials and will continue to provide color throughout the winter. Iberis sempervirens(Candytuft) is very attractive with glossy, dark green leaves and is extremely frost hardy. Helleborus(Christmas Rose) is popular for its mid-winter white flowers, often appearing in the snow. Others have shades of green, red, and purple. Great foliage and flowers for winter interest! Erica carnea(Winter Heath) has a great display of small urn-shaped flowers that are purple-pink through most of the winter and into early spring. Liriope muscari and spicata have leaves so dark they are practically black. They provide nice contrast w/ other plants in the faded landscape. Ophiopogon planiscapus(Black Mondo Grass) has purple-black stiff leaves that form clumps. They are beautiful when combined with other plants that show off their unusual color. Plan ahead and make some of these additions so you can continue to enjoy your garden throughout the winter! Text Box: December Newsletter Text Box: Monthly To-Do List · Make sure all planting beds are mulched for the winter season · Tie and support evergreen shrubs to avoid breakage from winter snow · Protect trees from mouse damage with wire mesh trunk guards · Protect shrubs from deer with burlap or netting · Rejuvenate/prune overgrown shrubs as weather permits Feature Article: Perennials for Winter Interest Just because the weather is cold and the landscape is going dormant, doesn’t mean your yard has to lose all of its appeal. There are many plant selections that will make your yard look great year round. Several plants will maintain their color and form while others turn brown and lose their Text Box: leaves. First, anything that is evergreen throughout the winter months will add to the winter interest of your garden. There are also several perennials that flower, have great structure or produce berries. Try some of these interesting selections to liven up your garden! Viola tricolor(Johnny Jump Up) produces neat flowers with faces in shades of yellow, blue, violet, and white. Flowers in fall and often winter. Self-seeds readily. Rosa rugosa(Rugosa Rose) is a large shrub that has good fall color. It produces large tomato-like hips after flowering that provide color and interest all winter long. Sedum ‘Herbstfreude’(Autumn Joy) has large heads of pink flowers that appear in the fall and eventually fade to copper color and then red. Enjoy them all winter and then cut back in the spring. Acorus gramineus(Sweet Flag) is grown mainly for it foliage, which is sweet smelling. In the winter it has beautiful texture and pleasing, green, white and chartreuse colors. Dianthus gratianopolitanus(Cheddar Pink) has neat and tidy mounds of blue-gray linear leaves that develop into broad mats. The low-growing silvery foliage contrasts nicely with other Text Box: Nursery Services Inc. Text Box: Tree of the Month: Crataegus virdis ‘Winter King’: Winter King Hawthorne – 20-25’ height, 20-25’ spread. A small growing tree that features showy white spring flowers and fruit which persists into the winter. Shrub of the Month: Ilex verticillata inter ‘Red Winter’: Red Winterberry – 9’ height, 8’ rounded habit. Dark green leaves very heavy fruit set Perennial of the Month: Polystichum acrostichoides: Christmas Fern. 5-6” height. Dark green evergreen native fern can tolerate rocky soil common to our forests. 2’ fronds are sometimes used in Christmas decorations. Quote: Gardening is a kind of disease. It infects you, you cannot escape it. When you go visiting, your eyes rove about the garden; you interrupt the serious cocktail drinking because of an irresistible impulse to get up and pull a weed. ~Lewis Gannit You can look forward to learning more about “Dealing With the Deer Problem” in our January issue!