The chilly weather is here but that doesn’t mean you can’t have some color in your garden. There are many flowers that come in a variety of colors that can handle a light frost and sometimes even a mild winter. Hardy annuals are easy to find in your local garden center, and they can extend the gardening season by months.
One of the most common cool-season annuals that you’ll see being sold are Pansies. Pansies come in almost every color of the rainbow and absolutely love cool weather. Planted in early fall or late winter, these cool-season annuals are champs at keeping color popping in your garden bed.
The Dusty Miller is another one of the frost-tolerant annuals. While they’re capable of surviving a light frost, once the first heavy frosts are expected it’s best to prepare them for the winter ahead. Trim them to about 4 inches tall and heavily mulch the plants to insulate them from the extreme cold of winter. Come early spring you can remove the mulch so your plants will be ready for another season of velvety growth.
Sweet Alyssum are annual flowers that can survive the cooler weather as long as there is no hard freeze. Made up of mounds of honey-scented, white blossoms, they add a snowy presence to the landscape and will, in the early part of the season, draw pollinators to your garden.
If you are looking for cut flowers in the winter season there are a few choices that can add color both inside and out. Winterberry comes in varieties with red, pink, or gold berries that look beautiful in arrangements. In addition to looking lovely, they also last long with an average vase life of 14 to 21 days.
Winter Heath blooms with lovely florets of pink, white, purple, mauve, yellow, or red. These can be cut in extremely long stems to add height to an arrangement.
Winter Jasmine blooms in mid-to-late winter with bright yellow blossoms. These can also be cut in long stems and bring a little joy to dark winter days.
Finally, Camellia is lovely in arrangements during winter. Their waxy rose-like blooms don’t tend to live long in a vase (about 3–5 days) but their unique and perfect beauty more than makes up for it!