Containers help add some color to winter.

Byline: Paul Rogers 

COLUMN: ROOTS OF WISDOM

In many instances, cold temperatures have killed the plant display in containers. Window boxes, pots, tubs and other containers no longer provide the high points of beauty and interest that we enjoyed this past season. Are you prepared to leave these containers barren and empty during the sere months of winter - just when color, beauty and interest would be deeply appreciated?

Think first of the container. It should be made of a material that will not be damaged by exposure to winter weather. Wooden containers easily withstand the freezing and thaw cycles of the winter months with associate expansion as moisture swells as it turns to ice. Ceramic, clay and plastic pots may or may not be subject to cracking from freezing temperatures. Investigate before using expensive containers outdoors during the cold season.

Whatever container is used, it should be emptied of its worn-out soil that currently holds potentially damaging fertilizer salts, dead roots and, perhaps, fungi associated with dead organic matter. Simple sanitation is our task. There are options available for us to use the containers empty. In other cases, sand is used to hold branch stems in position for our winter arrangements. Lastly, in some instances, the containers will actually be planted so that fresh soil will be used to support new plants.

In considering our options, we can view the use of an empty container or one filled with sand as a single case for purposes of this discussion. However, in the empty container, we need something like crushed-up chicken wire (wear gloves!) or crosshatched horizontally placed branches to hold the display stems in place. In other containers, sand will perform this function.

Allow free play to your creativity when constructing your winter arrangements. Some designers will use home-cut or purchased evergreen branches to provide the framework of the display. When you work with cut evergreens, you cannot help but notice the wide differences in both textures and colors found in common evergreens. White pine needles are flexible, soft and yellow-green. Juniper foliage is sharp, angular and hard, and its colors range from black-greens, to bronze, grays and blues. Boxwoods are broad-leaved as is laurel, rhododendron and leucothoe.

Create first solely with evergreen material to provide a composition that stands on its own. You will discover that some types of evergreen function better for you than others. For example, hemlock branches have a short useful life in arrangements as it too-soon sheds needles. The foliage of some euonymus quickly browns. False cypress is a joy to use as it varies in texture, color and form thus providing a mind-blowing range of possibilities. With a colorful evergreen composition, you can stop right now and have a creditable arrangement. Or, you can go wild! Plumes of ornamental grasses can be added as single stems or clumped into formed bunches. Use them in various lengths to add height. Add clusters of berries of mountain ash, cotoneasters, native holly, hawthorns, crabapples, and the hips from rugosa and other roses, and other plant parts that you find attractive.

One note of caution - do not use the berry clusters of multiflora rose or the berries of bittersweet, as these plants are thugs. Each is invasive to the max and will quickly take over your yard as birds sow their seeds.

Winter does not have to be colorless. It will be only if we let it be so!