Cover Up for Winter

Cold, dark winter days can be depressing, but with a few well-chosen climbers to dress up your screens, boundaries, and bare-stemmed trees, this can be an exciting and beautiful season.

Excerpted from How to Grow Practically Everything
Filed under: How To, Shrubs

Seasonal Gold

The winter jasmine, Jasminum nudiflorum, is really a wall shrub, but its long, lax stems are easily trained over trellis or on wires to cover screens and fences. Masses of starry golden yellow flowers appear on bare stems in late winter and early spring, but unlike summer jasmine, they are unscented.

Planting Jasmine

Choose a spot that will be in full sun or partial shade in the winter to encourage the best blooms. Note that areas that are in sun in summer may be shaded later in the year, so check your aspect carefully. In autumn, dig well-rotted organic matter, such as manure or homemade garden compost, into the soil before you start, and plant the jasmine as for wall shrubs. Winter jasmine’s tough little flowers continue to bloom even when dusted with frost. During dry spells, keep the plant well watered until established, and feed with a shrub fertilizer each spring.

Evergreen Clematis

Exquisite blooms set amid evergreen foliage are the star qualities of winter-flowering clematis. Plant them in a sheltered site because they don’t tolerate low temperatures.