Stunning Stems

Winter exposes gardens and their plants to more than the elements of weather. The winter season reveals the architectural bones of the garden. The absence of foliage and flowers on deciduous shrubs and trees exposes surfaces, colors, patterns, and textures as in no other season.

Twigs, stems, branches and trunks take center stage against a backdrop of evergreens, ornamental grasses, and, sometimes, a blanket of snow.

Winter Stem Colors

Winter’s rainbow of twig and stem colors includes earthtone shades of brown and black along with white, green, yellow, red, pink, and orange. The red-osier dogwood, Cornus stolonifera, sports red, yellow, yellow-green, and orange stem varieties despite the common name. A hedge of red osier makes a colorful and eye-catching chorus line.

The willow, Salix ‘Flame’ has stems of orange-red. Stems of coral bark Japanese maple, Acer palmatum ‘Sango-Kaku’ are bright, coral-red.

The green arching stems of the Japanese rose or Easter rose, Kerria japonica, are graceful ballerinas in the garden. The arching tumbling green stems of winter jasmine, Jasminum nudifolum, are acrobats of the plant world.

Bark Textures

The exposed trunks of many winter trees seem to be wearing earthtone textured tights. The shaggiest of papery birch barks, the river birch, Betula niger, has reddish-brown to orange hues. The satiny silver bark of Yoshino cherry, Prunus x yedoensis, is flecked with rows of reddish-brown lenticels.

The Japanese paperbush, Edgeworthia papyrifera, a stockier stemmed shrub than the red osier, has a reddish cast to its twigs in winter. One inch long clusters of white flower buds nod from the stems all winter.

The blocked bark of the flowering dogwood tree, Cornus florida, resembles a woodcut printing block. The muscular limbs of crape myrtle, Lagerstroemia indica, simulate the legs of Olympic athletes.

Some trees with exfoliating bark provide a colorful patchwork pattern. The irregular blotches of white, crème, grey, green, and brown on sycamore tree bark, Platanus occidentalis, make the tree easily recognizable. The Japanese stewartia, Stewartia pseudocamellia, has smooth peeling bark in shades of brown, tan, grey and beige.

Corky wings surround some tree limbs giving the impression of impending flight. The winged elm, Ulmus alata, and sweetgum, Liquidambar styraciflua, have wing branches usually only noticeable in winter.

Although the eastern red cedar, Juniperus virginiana, is an evergreen, the bark of mature trees is particularly handsome as it vertically sheds reddish-brown and grey fibrous strips.

Instead of longing for spring, make the most of the bold bare beauty of the winter landscape.