5 Ideas to Beautify Your Winter Landscape in the Mid-Atlantic

Both spring and summer are wonderful seasons. It’s the time when your yard looks the most beautiful, filled by flowers, lush green grass, and other flowering trees. However, as we move into winter, you may find that the beauty you love so much in the spring and summer has dwindled away. Fortunately, there is no need to despair, as winter landscape on your property can be just as beautiful. Here are 5 winter landscape ideas particularly relevant for Washington DC and Mid-Atlantic area homeowners.

1. Plant Evergreen Trees for Winter Landscape Beauty

Evergreens are a great way to help your winter landscape look beautiful and lush all season. Obviously, when you live in the northeast, snow and ice are simply a part of winter. As a result, you need to be sure that your landscaping includes robust plants that don’t just beautify it during the warmer months.

Evergreens are a great way to add a pop of color, and that color does not just have to be green. For example, a Blue Dwarf Spruce will have a blueish hue to it, while the Gold Thread False Cypress can offer beautiful yellows. Both can be used as accent points throughout your landscaping, or to help to separate different areas. Either way, they will look good regardless of the season.

2. Attract Birds With Food and Water

During the cold months, most of your efforts to attract birds in the summer won’t work. Your bird bath, for example, with freeze easily. Fortunately, you can take a number of steps to ensure that even in winter, birds will still bring life, color, and activity to your yard.

The first is to make sure that your bird feeder is packed with seeds. Especially during winter, birds will find it more difficult to find their food, and a reliable source can turn your yard into a desirable spot. Similarly, you can make sure that your bird bath doesn’t freeze by getting creative, such as using a heated dog bowl. Finally, shrubs with winter berries such as crabapples and holly can both add a touch of color to your yard and attract birds.

3. Beautiful Lighting

One option you might not have considered is adding lights to beautify your winter landscape. During the winter months, the sun sets earlier seemingly every day, so you and any onlookers will not be able to enjoy the landscape as long as they would during summer. By coming up with a lighting design, you will help bring beauty and interest to your landscape. Whether you are highlighting plants with spotlight or just placing a more encompassing light to give the entire yard a bright feel, this touch can truly impact your landscape.

In addition to using lights throughout your property, a fire pit can also add to your landscaping. You will especially enjoy it during the winter months to roast marshmallows, and to provide warmth while you enjoy a hot spiced wine. Even though winter is often synonymous with dying plants and feeling like you can’t enjoy the outside, adding a firepit will help to make your home look beautiful and offer you new opportunities to enjoy the outside despite the cold.

4. Repurpose Existing Decorations

If you have flower pots in the front of your home that are interwoven throughout your landscape, don’t remove them or keep them empty. Instead, repurpose them. For example, if you have a decorative wheelbarrow that you use to grow annuals, don’t put it away in your garage. Instead, plant annuals to add color in additional ways.

If your property includes a bird bath, it will probably get plenty of use during the spring and summer. But during winter this ordinary birdbath can take on another purpose. Move it to the front of your property into an otherwise empty area, and it can act as a piece of sculpture. Not only are you filling in in gaps, but you also showcase an already existing piece in fresh and creative ways within your landscaping.

5. Consider Your Hardscape

In winter, you can’t rely on your garden, flowers, and shrubbery to provide color and shape to your yard. That, in turn, increases the importance of hardscaping in preparing for the cold season.

Simply adding a bench or trellis, for example, can add both color and coherence to your winter landscape, even if you can’t plant vines on the trellis or utilize the bench until it gets warmer. If you have the time before it gets too cold, you may always want to consider building or buying a fireside retreat that allows you to get cozy even as it snows around you.

Getting Your Yard Ready for Winter

Ultimately, the goal of your landscaping should be to avoid focusing on the ground. The above tels can not only help to make your yard look pleasing, but will also draw the eyes upward and away from the cold hard ground, which will periodically be covered with snow.

At the end of the day, it’s important to make choices around the year, regardless of weather and warmth. And if you lack the ability to really visualize what your landscape could be, then it’s important to enlist the help of professionals to help guide you.

Winter in Maryland brings with it cold temperatures and snow. But just because many plants have either died or gone away until summer, the exterior of your home can still be beautiful. Whether you decide to plant trees that will look stunning all year, paint your front door for a pop of color, light up your landscape, or repurpose existing pieces, you’ll be able to bring new life and beauty to your home. To learn more about how we can help you accomplish that, please contact us.