Striking Stems Provide Winter Interest
by Rita Pelczar

Kick the appeal of your winter landscape up a notch with shrubs and small trees that offer colorful stems, arresting forms, or exquisitely textured bark.

The short days and chilly temperatures of winter have stripped deciduous plants of their summer and autumn finery, exposing their “bare bones” to the world. With this seasonal exposure, however, some of the finest qualities of many garden shrubs and trees are revealed.

Winter stem colors vary widely. Beyond brown, black, and gray they include yellow, green, red, pink, orange, and ghostly white. Often it is the young growth that sports the brightest hues, so for many shrubs with colorful stems it’s best to remove the oldest stems each spring to encourage lots of new shoots.

Several selections of the red-osier dogwood (Cornus stolonifera syn. C. sericea, USDA Hardiness Zones 3–8, AHS Heat Zones 8–1) display colorful winter stems, and despite the common name, all are not red. While the stems of ‘Cardinal’ range from brilliant red to yellow-orange, those of ‘Flaviramea’ are bright yellow. Most cultivars grow to about six feet tall, spread to 12 feet, and sucker vigorously. They are great for massing against an evergreen background.

The stems of Salix ‘Flame’ (Zones 3–8, 7–1) are orange-red. “This vigorous grower never fails to elicit positive visitor response at the JC Raulston Arboretum,” says the North Carolina arboretum’s director Dennis Werner. “It’s a great alternative to the red- and yellow-stem dogwoods, which often are challenging for us here in the mid-South.”

The shoots of coral bark Japanese maple (Acer palmatum ‘Sango-kaku’, Zones 6–8, 8–2) are bright coral-red. “It is the newest growth that is the reddest, and only where the winter sun shines on the stems, so plant it where you see it from that angle,” suggests Larry Mellichamp, a professor at the University of North Carolina - Charlotte, and co-author with Peter Loewer of The Winter Garden: Planning and Planting for the Southeast (Stackpole Books, 1997).

For shrubs with exfoliating bark, it’s the older branches that produce the best show, so removing low branches or twiggy growth to reveal the patchwork of bark colors or shredding textures will enhance the winter display in the garden. This same discretionary thinning treatment applies to shrubs with dramatic branching habits.

Ellen Zagory, director of horticulture at the University of California–Davis Arboretum, recommends a manzanita, Arctostaphylos densiflora ‘Howard McMinn’ (Zones 7–9, 9–7), for western gardeners. It has “beautiful, mahogany, muscular branches with age,” says Zagory.

Photo credits: Cornus sericea Flaviramea by Susan A. Roth; Cornus sanguinea Midwinter Fire by Lynne Harrison; ocotillo by Michael S. Thompson.

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