Winter Interest

Betula pendula 'Youngii' in my garden after a recent snowstorm.

Birch bark is one of my favorite kindling for winter burn piles. Looks like you'll need to grow that one on a bit more before it's worth much. They grow fast :)

Here's one of the persistent-fruited winterberries, Ilex x 'Bonfire'.

It's like being immersed in a bunch of red bubbles...

Those are great pics! Kenarden, the Young's weeping birch is about ten years old. Here it's a fun ornamental " oddity" just to look at. It doesn't peel at all. There is a Betula Nigra "Cully" River Birch in the corner of the yard that is about 40 feet tall, and peels like crazy. We have used the bark from it for starting camp fires. The bark catches fire when wet, which is amazing to me.
ViburnumValley , That is a beautiful shrub, and the berries are gorgeous! There are a few viburnums here, but the trilobum (Wentworth) is the main one that produces berries. So far the others are duffers! I don't k now why they don't make many berries. They are Cardinal Candy , Setigerum and Viburnum Dilatatum spec.

QC, take a look at this thread about Virburnum pollination, propagation, and provenance:

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/568744/

The gist of it is you need dissimilar plants with overlapping bloom times. Where that puts you with the plants you mention, I have no idea... I just have a few young native Viburnums.

Here's a 'Centennial Girl' Holly pic:

claypa,
Beautiful picture of the holly! Great link! I will definitely read the link carefully. Appreciate it.The overlapping bloom times of the cultivars makes sense. I have good luck with the Ilex Verticillata, which is a good thing since at this point they are my main "red berry" winter interest shrubs.

We're expecting a major winter storm to start later today so I'm sure I will have some great winter picture taking opportunities. We're supposed to get an inch of ice followed by 7-10 inches of snow!

Viburnum Valley: What is your fertilization schedule for your winterberries? I'm dying to try them, but here they need lots of fertilizer to produce good crops of berries. I know they are persistent, but do the birds eat them all up early in the winter? Also, what is your experience with winterberries as far as sun/shade and wet/dry? Do you have other varieties planted, and/or is 'Bonfire' your best performer? Any advice would be helpful. The photo was beautiful!

VV Your Ilex X Bonfire berries are really showy. I have Ilex verticulata, small yet, but did have some fruit, and I. verticulata Southern Gentleman pollenizer. My soil is so very alkaline. Do they need some sulfur added. The birds don't eat the berries until late.

quaintcharm, Your Betula Youngi must be about the same age as mine. I have pruned mine heavily to try to force it to grow a little taller and now two fairly large limbs are growing like i wanted.

Donna

Just heard, the village of Simplon in Switzerland has just had 2.4 METRES of snow!

There's a car . . . and a bus . . . somewhere in there . . .
http://info.tsr.ch/galeries/269/5341.jpg

Found the car!
http://info.tsr.ch/galeries/269/5365.jpg

Larches are tough trees, but sometimes even they can't cope . . .
http://info.tsr.ch/galeries/269/5342.jpg

Resin

Wow! That larch picture was amazing - was there an avalanche there?

Maybe all that snow will help even just a teensy bit with the terrible effects of climate change they have been experiencing.

This take with an old 1950's Bosley camera. Makes it easy to take double exposures.

I looked for a recent winter shot of same, but all I could find was a summer pic:

rutholive,
We cut one of the big side limbs of the Young's Birch. It looks more interesting. Before it looked like a tall two headed mop. An added benefit is that now the Dragon Eye Pine in front of the birch will get more sun. Those are amazing pictures, Leftwood! The first one in particular. The shadowy pine images in the foreground really nice. The pics of the snow in Switzerland makes me wonder how our ancestors ever made it through a snowfall like that.

Ilex Verticillata either "Winter Red" or "Sparkle Berry" a couple of weeks ago.

I had a dragon's Eye Pine for 10 years then for some reason it just died. I really liked it and hated to lose it.

Wind is blowing again so the snow will drift some. I hope not too badly as I have an appt. with Joey's Bark & Bath for Lhaso Apso's regular every 6 weeks trim, etc. She is located in a town 30 miles south of here. It takes 2 hours for that, and while Joey is giving Blue her "beauty shop treatment", I go to Senior Center for lunch with my sister. Then take Blue to get her yearly shots. So I hope the hwy doesn't get any worse for driving.

Donna

rutholive,

My first Dragon Eye died . It lived for 3 years or so, then died during the winter. This one has been here for maybe seven years. The one that's here now was really small (foot tall) when I bought it through mail delivery from the now closed Roslyn's nursery in New York. I'm hoping this DE pine being so much smaller when it was planted will help it to acclimatize to this climate. I have found this to be true in my experience with Thundercloud Plums, some Japanese Maples, and Pieris. The first Dragon Eye was from a nursery near Chicago. We picked it up, and it was a much larger ball and burlap plant.
The weather here was sleet, so until it melts a bit, I won't go out. Good luck with the dog grooming trip.
My Winter Berry looks really scrappy compared to the "Bonfire" posted by ViburnumValley! That one is really beautiful.

Winter at the pond.

Grasses and conifers always pair nicely.

Great pictures snapple!!!

Those are very nice! I love them.

My yard is still sparse but I like it.

"Minimilist" is a valid and often starkely beautiful garden design concept.

Because I'm a plantaholic I have adopted the "Where can I crowd it in?" school of design.

Granite Pagoda, Chamacyparis and old hemlocks.

Mother Nature takes the credit and the bow.

My pocketbook dictates my purchases! LOL Astilbe and lantern.

Snapple,
The "Wherever you can crowd it" style looks just wonderful. Mother Nature in this case has been arranged superbly! Just Beautiful.

I'll be surprised if none of these Virginia pines fall this weekend from the weight of the freezing rain

Qcharm, My DEpine was more than 10 year old, and had been planted at young age. It did show some signs of illness, Needles turning all yellow, but the only thing I could think of was again my very alkaline soil. Last summer due to severe wind storm My 13 year old Purple Plum Thundercloud blew over and smashed a nice small evergreen and branches off of another evergreen. I thought it's root system, for a tree topping 25-30 feet tall and wide, looked to be too small. It was growing in reasonably good soil and water conditions.

snapple your gardening method???? is the same as mine 'Where can I crowd another plant in'.

It is very cold this morning, now at just before 7:00 am, it is minus 6.7 degrees, but luckily no wind and no ice, about 10" of fluffy snow for protection. I am not going outside to take any pictures, would freeze my camera.

Donna

claypa - keep us posted on those pines. We're locked in an ice embrace here, with temps going to 3 above tonight. I'm hoping for even a little sunshine on all the ice covered trees. It should be spectacular.

Thanks, all, for the kind words about the 'Bonfire' holly. I've had that one since about 1999, and it is happiest (like most winterberries) when it has regular wetness. Nearby are 'Winter Red' and 'Harvest Red', neither of which are slouches. I'll see if I can't rustle up a picture with the whole motley crew.

quaintcharm:

Your winterberry is nothing to frown about. That looks to be a 4-5' plant, and that's a nice shroud of fruit. It will only get better with age, so long as there's a male plant around to pollinate with.

rutholive:

Ilex verticillata certainly is happy having acid soils, but mine have done admirably here on circumneutral (6.8 - 7.2 pH) clayey loams, which get pretty dry in summer. Usually, keeping adequate water handy will serve best. You certainly can add sulfur over the rooting zone, or something like iron sulfate wouldn't hurt either if you've done a soil test and know the pH and the rest of the analysis.

HoosierGreen asked several questions, and I'm thinking a new thread is the place to take that tangent.

See here for an extended reply: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/933981/

OK, I can add another image...

ViburnumValley,
Your shrubs in the woodland /prairie collection are great. There are so many cultivars, I wouldn't be surprised if a cross pollinated seed drops, and a new cultivar pops up.My WinterBerries were planted in fall of 2006, and were about 18" tall. Mine are Maryland Beauty, Winter Red , Sparkleberry and Sprite. The males are Southern Gentleman and Jim Dandy. They are in part shade, and get no special treatment. By seeing yours, it does give me something to look forward to. I have large male Meserve Hollies, but get no fruit on the young females.They are right next to the males, which are 9 feet tall, and have been here 11 years. The females were planted fall 2006.
A pic of the fountain iced up in an early frost. He looks pretty put out. Now he's covered.

Here are a few winter pictures that I took today with my camera phone, while taking breaks from ice picking (we had about an inch of ice yesterday, followed by a few inches of snow, and I spent most of today clearing the sidewalk).

This is looking from my driveway at my neighbor's house - my bird feeders are popular in this weather!

Looking from my driveway towards the other neighbor's house (the wrought iron fence is hers, it is hand made and beautiful!).

Looking from the walk to the front door of my house towards my driveway.

The winter bear and a few conifer friends (we have to have the fencing there in winter to keep rabbits from demolishing plants).

One of my "special purchases!"

A few more conifer friends.

Then, I have to answer to Bailey the collie, who wants to know why I am shovelling away the snow and ice. I should just spend all of my time chasing him around the yard!

Great pics ic-conifers! It's no wonder Bailey the Collie wants to play..he/she has plenty of hair stay warm!

Great winter pics, everyone. VV, I love your winterberry! So vivid.