When winter settles in, most gardens go quiet — but it doesn’t have to be that way. In today’s video, I’m sharing the best shrubs for winter interest, focusing on the plants that bring color, texture, and structure to the garden during the coldest months of the year.
These are shrubs I rely on year after year to keep my landscape looking intentional and beautiful, even when flowers are gone and growth has slowed. Whether you’re designing a new garden or improving an existing one, these winter-interest shrubs are the backbone of a landscape that looks good in every season.
🌿 In this video you’ll learn:
• What makes a shrub valuable in winter
• How color, texture, and structure work together
• Which shrubs provide reliable winter interest
• How to build a garden that never looks empty
This is an evergreen gardening guide you can return to every winter as you plan, plant, and refine your landscape.
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These are great online resources for evergreen shrubs:
🌿 Creekside Nursery https://bit.ly/4tjV8rq
🌿 Wilson Bros Gardens https://bit.ly/4teHJAZ
🌿 Camellia Forest Nursery https://bit.ly/48mXGg2
🌿 Garden Treasures https://bit.ly/48GoeHU
🌿 Nurseries Caroliniana https://bit.ly/3YibuCo
43 Comments
Hey Jenny from zone 8 of Northeast Georgia. I bought a Artic Fire Dogwood and Crimson Queen Japanese Maple, which I love but keep in the back yard due to Deer and Rabbits. The former owner planted several Sky Pencil Japanese Holly to my front yard planting bed next to the house. I am a work in progress only living here since Jul 2022. I forgot my two grasses: 1. Karl Foerster and Prairie Wind which I had to relocate from my front bed to backyard where it can get more sun.
Arizona Cypress "Carolina Sapphire," Chamaecyparis Tetragona Aurea. Sarcococca (Sweet Box), Pieris (Impish Elf), Viburnum, Carolina Jessamine, abelia, nandina, loropetalum, azalea. Also have Illicium, Osmanthus, camellias, Stellar Ruby magnolia and huge old Southern Magnolias. Hellebores and epimedium. Honorable mentions – Red-twig dogwood and Edgeworthia. Also NC 8a, but on the border of 7b.
Looking around this morning made me realize a few places that are rather lacking in something for winter interest.
South MS zone 8b…My heucheras are showing out this winter and my abelia are a beautiful gold. I haven't worked up the courage to plant evergreen conifers yet.
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Zone 8a NC Sandhills: any type of holly. This year especially Nellie Stevens and Savannah hollies are absolutely covered with red berries. Nellies are deep green leaves while Savannah is brighter and lighter. Also Firepower and Blush Pink nandina. Turns to bright red foliage and pinkish during the cold season. Grey owl junipers for cool blue.
I'm in North Arkansas, Zone 7. When I look outside in my garden right now, I see junipers (small trees and shrubs), boxwoods, a couple of arborvitae, a large holly, many roses still have some foliage, ornamental grasses still standing, a winterberry shrub still with berries, some perennial foliage at ground level, and of course weeds, lol.
Zone 8B in the PNW, you have all our snow, 60 degrees here. I have hydrangeas, silver maple, Japanese maple in the winter and a huge marvelous Daphne for winter blooming. Surrounded by fir trees in the neighborhood
Thank you for the walk about the yard. Beautiful!
Wilson Brothers nursery ships all year round. No matter the weather. They have amazing selection!
Juliet Cleyera is one of my favorite winter interest shrubs.
Southern NH 5b/6a about an hour south of Pleasant View Nursery! My rhododendrons,
Azalea and holly are beautiful and very much covered in snow.
6A. Western Maryland. I have hosta, allium, bea balm, hibiscus, grasses, phenomenal lavender, our area is very humid in summer. Daisy, Yucca, black eye Susan, butterfly bush, hardy geranium, autumn fern, bearded iris and other perennials. 😊 greatly enjoy your videos. Thank you so much for all the content and information.
BR, Louisiana – zone 9A. Love my evergreen sweet olive, Jake’s camellia, and Big Foot Cleyera. I have a stellar ruby magnolia as well as a Dee Dee Blanchard grandiflora magnolia. Soon I will adding a Spartan Juniper (arborvitae doesn’t do well in my area).
Edited to add: I almost forgot, my large, old time azaleas and gardenias 😊 !
I planted an Arctic Ice Blue Cedar and the Artic air made it even more Blue! Also added Artic red and Artic Yellow Dogwood tree and such an interesting look with colored stems
My winter faves, some like you mentioned – the paisley pup leucothoe, also burning love leucothoe and the florida sunshine illicium, which look amazing planted together. Camellias are must-have. And daphnes!!! – perfume princess and maejima. Also spiders web fatsia. There is so so much for winter, I feel like especially for us zone 8 people. Im in southeast Virginia.
Cindy in Zebulon, NC acuba's
I’m in the DFW area, zone 8b, and just now building out my garden. I’m excited to plant some lemon cypress trees. I have cedar fever, so cedar/junipers are 1000% off the table. 😂
Thank you for putting the plant info on the screen! I am in 5b/6a and always want the zone 7 plants. Mostly, creators put the name, but not the size or zone. Just perfect consideration for us viewers!
Zone 8b Sandy, Oregon
Grevillea is great year round. Some varieties bloom year round. Humming birds love their flowers during the winter. It works well in the dry summers in the West.
Zone 8B, aspidistra, pittsoporum, sago palms and azaleas for winter interest
I am in Mobile Alabama Zone 9a (formerly 8b for the past 30 years). I like palm trees for winter interest. I have all kinds that grow in my zone. There is a palm for you! Needle palms can grow in zones down to 6b! Needle palms (Rhapidopyllum hystrix) form a dense bush 6 to 10 ft tall and about as wide. They have 6 inch "thorns" that come up from the ground around the clump. Indians used these as sewing needles hence the name.
I'im northern California zone 9a and my purple lilac vine is in full bloom. Just beautiful.
Your garden looks great! In my zone 8a Alabama garden several things are looking well too. My favorite are my ornamental grasses. Others that also really like are my dwarf mugo pines, night light chamaecyparis, pancake arborvitaes, dragon prince cryptomerias, daydream loropetalums and boxwoods.
Hi Jenny! I am in Virgina a zone 8a. Evergreens I have in my yard for winter interest are green, giant, North Pole, fire chief, and forever goldy arborvitae, globosa Nana cryptomeria, gold dust Acuba, a dwarf Hinoki Cyprus, and several soft touch holly used as a boxwood substitute – hedging and mounded specimans.
Camellias, chindo viburnums, fluffy arborvitae, sting arborvitae. These really stand out in the snow but also year round. Love the sting arborvitae. Zone 7b NC. Have to add distyllium to the list too
North west Alabama zone 8a, but close to TN boarder 7b. My forever Goldy Arborviteas are gorgeous in winter. They seem to be more golden. I have 4.
Here in zone 5 with 2 1/2 feet of snow, we like pines, spruces, holly, rhododendrons and Chamaecyparis Soft Serve – both colors.. I have an Andromeda Pieris, but it is still young and buried under the snow.
Zone 8b Oregon…..Chilean guava. Discovered this plant last fall and it is gorgeous all year round!
Zone 7b – Edgeworthia in winter!
I live in Denver CO and you have gotten more snow than we have all winter. 😂 We were in the 60s today. Tomorrow might get to 70.
Florida zone 9b sky pencil holly trees
South Carolina 8a. I love my variegated pittosporum year round.
Hahaha. I hate!!!!!!!!!!!!! the smell of tea olive. Pretty plant though.
Canada zone 5a. We have many evergreens, but I especially love a clump of white birch and red twig dogwoods against an evergreen background.
My North Pole arbs are a magnet for bag worms here in the Ozark’s zone 6b /7a I love my Hollys in the landscape.
I am having a hard time seeing all that snow on your property. It just doesn’t seem right. I am in a zone 3b with snow, so it’s natural here, but not where you are 😊. I hope it melts soon.
I am a conifer collector and love evergreen interest in the winter. I do love Nellie R. Stevens holly and have 5 of them in a mixed boarder screen on the edge of my property along with 8 Emerald Green Arborvitae’s, 2 Steeds Holly, 1 Buford Holly, 3 Crimson Fire Loropetalum, 2 Gulf Stream Nandina, 2 Goshiki Osmanthus and 3 Canyon Creek Abelia, 1 Ruby Anniversary Abelia, 1 Rose Creek Abelia, and 1 Sizzling Pink Loropetalum. All stay evergreen and give me a great screen on the east side of my property. As for conifers, besides the Emerald Green Arborvitae’s, I have the following; Roman Candle Podocarpus, Mr Bowling Ball Arborvitae, Stonehenge Dark Druid Yew, Dragon Prince Cryptomeria, Grey Owl Juniper, Blue Feathers Chamaecyparis, Yewtopia Plum Yew, Fernleaf Hinoki Cypress, Dwarf Hinoki Cypress, Cream Ball Chamaecyparis, Blue Star Juniper, Ellwoodi Chamaecyparis, Franky Boy Arborvitae, Celtic Pride Microbiota Siberian cypress , Baby Blue Ice Chamaecyparis , Lemon Cypress, Goldcrest, Tater Tot Arborvitae, Wichita Blue Juniper, Pancake Arborvitae, Tsuga Gentsch White Canadian Hemlock, Cedric’s Deodora Prostrate Beauty Himalayan Cedar, Barry’s Silver Lawson Cypress, Whipcord Western Red Cedar, Danica Arborvitae, and two Boxwood. Other evergreens in my gardens are, Curly Red Leucothe, Heller’s Japanese Holly, Bordeaux Yaupon Holly, Scallywag Holly, Soft Touch Compact Holly, Rawlstons Hardy Viburnum, Moonlit Lace Viburnum, Spring Bouquet Viburnum, Shades of Pink Viburnum, 6 different varieties of Pieris, 1 rhododendron, 11 varieties of Abelia, 3 varieties of Distylium, 26 varieties of Camellia, 5 different varieties of Indian Hawthorn, 1 Daphne, 11 varieties of evergreen Azaleas, 7 varieties of Gardenia, 3 varieties of Osmanthus, totaling 10 plants and 6 other Loropetalum varieties. I am sure I am forgetting a few things out there. Evergreen perennials is a whole different book. What can I say…I love to garden!
CA zone 9 in the Sierra Nevada foothills:: Rosemary hedge, Daphnes and camellias are highlights now.
Great video! Thanks for all the info.
L O V E the Fire Chief !!!!
I’m in zone 7a southern Illinois. I have newly planted flower beds and so far my favorite evergreens are the lemon burst arborvitae and soft serve gold false cypress. The lemon burst has such a beautiful fall and winter color to it. The soft serve is a young plant and I like its wonky shape 😂 I am overwintering a just chill red tip camellia and am hoping it will do well in my zone next winter.
Thanks for sharing.
Please post a list of trees and shrubs you showed in this video.