Winter Garden Design Lessons from the Denver Botanic Gardens

Visiting the Denver Botanic Gardens in January — on a day so cold I thought I'd reached Alaska — I expected little. Instead, I left inspired by the creative ways designers had crafted genuine winter scenes, not just fleeting moments. Each vignette was deliberately staged for depth and interest, offering lessons applicable to gardens of any size.

Designing With Seed Heads

We're urged to leave seed heads for birds, but they're not always attractive. Denver's solution: create a solid backdrop to silhouette them.

1. Use a Solid Backdrop and Repetition for Impact

Discrete fence panels define a boundary while allowing glimpses beyond. Silhouetted against them: tall dried stems and seed heads of Lion's Tail (Leonotis sp.). Warm earth tones of panels and seed heads welcome gray days. Repetition of panels and plantings creates rhythm — a single cluster would look accidental.

Tip: Use fences or evergreens as backdrops; wispy grasses or deciduous shrubs lose the effect. Rather than one clump, add at least two more groups at intervals; in larger gardens, a single expansive swath works.

2. Echo Color Subtly

Summer's kaleidoscope fades; winter demands creative interest. A duo caught my eye: Sapphire Blue sea holly (Eryngium 'Sapphire Blue') with its papery bracts and teasel-like cone, planted beside dwarf Colorado blue spruce (Picea pungens 'Montgomery'). The tan seed head echoes the spruce's caramel-brown stems and buds — a detail usually lost beside the powder-blue conifer.

Tip: Combine seed heads with foliage. Cut samples and "audition" pairings to highlight overlooked details: stem color, berries, leaf undersides.

Designing With Shapes

The Japanese garden at Denver exemplifies year-round structural design. Artistically pruned conifers reveal contorted branching or compact foliage cushions; pines nurtured for years form cloud-like shapes. Mounds, cones, prostrate forms — in plants, boulders, and a simple bridge over a dry creek — create variety as crucial as the evergreen selection.

Tip: Analyze your garden's shapes: print a black-and-white photo and sketch on it (the Skitch app makes this quick). Need a short mound to break up columnar trees? A tight cone to contrast loose mounds? Carefully placed boulders can transform a flat landscape.

Designing With Grasses

Perhaps my favorite photo: soft, feathery grasses encrusted in ice, frozen in time — a Narnia moment. Many herbaceous grasses persist through winter, rustling in breeze, adding movement, creating sculpture, and providing food and shelter for birds.

1. Combine Grasses With Interesting Deciduous Trees and Shrubs

Frozen grasses flank a widely branched sumac (Rhus typhina) decorated with deep red seed heads like forgotten ornaments. Vertical grasses contrast beautifully with loose branching.

Tip: Sumac suckers aggressively — not for the faint-hearted. Substitute corkscrew hazelnut (Corylus avellana 'Contorta') for a similar contorted silhouette; 'Red Majestic' adds twisted red catkins.

2. Use Grasses to Frame a Scene

An enigmatic sculpture gains drama from an equally tall grass beside it, emphasizing scale and drawing attention to the stone's earth tones.

Tip: Have a special winter feature — birdbath, container? Add a grass backdrop or skirt. I use 2-foot evergreen orange hair sedge (Carex testacea) at urn bases; taller grasses suit larger pieces.

3. Use Grasses to Create Mystery

A path bordered by grasses begs exploration — what's around the corner? What's behind the grasses themselves?

Tip: Mass grasses as a low hedge (in-ground or raised planters). A single species works; color blends appeal too. Line both sides of a winding path to partially obscure the destination — or design a grass maze.

4. Use Grasses for Texture

"Texture" refers to both tactile feel and visual weight: bold (large leaves like hosta) vs. fine (wispy like Mexican feather grass, Stipa tenuissima). This photo shows extremes: bold prickly pear (Opuntia compressa) armored with spines, surrounded by supersoft grasses.

Tip: Mexican feather grass is invasive in many states; prickly pear needs dry climate. Try coffee sedge (Carex tenuiculmus 'Cappucino') with ghost bramble (Rubus cockburnianus 'Aureus') for a similar effect.