Winter Color Garden

Winter color does exist: Ornamental Kale ‘Peacock’ among the violas.

Many feel that there is a dead zone in the color calendar between Columbus Day and Christmas; as far as commercial landscape accounts are concerned, there is no color to offer. As growers who make money selling color to the green goods industry, we can tell you this point of view is completely wrong. We are growing some pretty interesting stuff in our Winter Trial Gardens, and we think these plants can help landscapers build another season of billable color services to their clients.

To us, a plant qualifies as Great Winter Color if it offers strong colors, bold textures or both. The plant should look better and better as the season turns colder and colder—it also needs to take hard hits of frost and bounce back looking great. For bonus points, we also consider the shape of the plant. We like garden drama; therefore, we select plants that capture interest.

So, what have we found? Let’s take a tour of this year’s Winter Color Garden.

Radicchio ‘Fiero’

This is the same radicchio you find on the end of your fork in a salad. Who knew it had such an interesting gnarly look to it as the frost peels back the leaves from the head. That’s how radicchio works. The heads are tight early in the season and—with every cold snap—one layer relaxes and exposes the next darker leave. Over time, the plant unfolds into an almost architectural garden sculpture.

Mustard ‘Ruby Streaks’

This plant is eye-catchingly cool because of the extremely frilled leaves on the strongly starred crown. The crown and center stalks will remain bright, vivid lime green, but the leaves will bronze down in the colder temperatures. Because they are the oldest, the ends of the leaves turn a very deep purple—almost black—at the tips.

Ornamental Kale ‘Scarlet Bor’

Speaking of incredibly dark leaves, Ornamental Kale ‘Scarlet Bor’ gets as deep as they go, especially in the whole plant color category. These leaves stay tightly, tightly bunched the whole season, even through frosts and heavy snow. We like to pair ‘Scarlet Bor’ with yellow violas—the contrast looks great and the viola blooms will follow ‘Scarlet Bor’ deep into the fall before they quit.

Pak Choi ‘Joi Choi’

Yes, this is the same bok choy you chop up into Asian dishes. Grown as an ornamental, it has a very strong rib that gives the plant one of the most sculptured looks in the garden. When frost hits it, the leaves will relax for the morning and then raise themselves back into position as the sun warms the plant. We didn’t expect to see that, but it’s cool to watch. We like to plant pak choi out in the open to encourage the frost hits.

Pak Choi 'Purple'

Even cooler is this red version of pak choi that we found. It’s very rare and we doubt that you’ll see it in your salad any time soon. We’re trying to figure out how to get production numbers up on this one because it’s so purple and so sculptural. This variety stands out, even when surrounded by brown tree leaves.

Mustard ‘Komatsuna Red’

The industry discourages mustards from bolting and generating flower stalks, but we think we need to make an exception here. First of all, this mustard is actually flowering after Thanksgiving. How crazy is that? Second, these are light sprays of yellow on bright lime green stalks, over a rosette of leaves that are solid red. Is it a drama plant? Yes—we have to admit it. This is a pretty showy display.

We encourage our landscape and garden center customers to pay us a visit during the quiet times. Our gardens are great teaching tools, and you learn so much when you can see the material, fully planted and mature, mixed with with companion plants like violas. This December has been crazy warm for us, so we suspect these gardens will look great well into January and maybe even into February.

We’re not kidding about the color in Mustard ‘Komatsuna Red’