Well, Janet, you've got quite an array of plants here.

Some of 'em are evergreen and some of them are not, so.

>>Yep, yep.

>>Tell me about how do we start with this?

>>Well, we've got a lot of things for winter interest that also provide a lot of color and blooms at other times, but we're gonna talk about why they're so important in winter.

And we can't shy away from what's laying down right here in front of us.

>>Yes.

>>This is rattlesnake master, eryngium yuccifolium, and this is the seedheads.

>>Yes.

>>It's a gray-green sort of plant, strappy foliage, very similar to yucca.

But this is what you get all winter long, very upright, three to four feet tall in the garden.

And that just stands there all winter long.

>>And the birds love the light on it.

>>They love the light.

Frost looks beautiful on it.

>>Yes.

>>So you can't go wrong with seedheads.

>>Not at all.

>>So remember that a lot of your good native perennials are gonna have those seedheads.

And to hang onto those all winter, somebody's gonna eat 'em and they're gonna enjoy that.

>>In my world, we keep 'em there till March.

>>There you go.

That's what we do.

So it's hard to resist - >>Yes.

>>our shrub here on the corner because it's so colorful.

I'm sure everybody's thinking what in the world?

Talk about that, please.

>>Yes.

>>This is a dwarf version of our native winter berry, ilex verticillata, This is Red Sprite.

>>Peggy's favorite plant.

>>Your favorite plant.

It's a tidy little shrub.

I know people that grow this in large containers on their patio.

This is a female.

We have male and female.

They're in the holly family.

>>Correct.

>>So you have to have a male somewhere to pollinate up to six females and you'll get the red berries.

It drops its leaves.

You get this all winter.

Your birds are gonna love this as a food source.

>>Yes.

>>Because they're gonna eat this later in winter when there's nothing else left to eat.

>>Absolutely.

Yes.

>>So you get to enjoy it.

Your birds get to enjoy it.

And that's not much better than that in your winter garden.

>>I agree.

>>So when you take a shrub, you think, well, what else can I do?

Because we believe in talking about layers in the garden.

>>Exactly.

>>So I like to put things around it that are gonna gimme year round interest.

And one of my favorites is this alum root, heuchera villosa, autumn broad.

You can see the colors already coming in the leaves.

>>Yes.

>>Here in the fall that's gonna stay all winter long.

>>That's lovely.

>>This doesn't disappear in the ground, like say hostas might.

>>Yes.

>>So it sticks around all winter.

It can be a little bit bigger in the garden.

You can see the seedheads.

It'll have a lot more seedheads as it gets older.

Beautiful pollinator plant in the late fall and then you get this all winter long.

>>Yes.

>>And because that's a broad leaf, I'm gonna hand this over to you, I like to marry that with one of our native sedges, which are evergreen-like grasses.

They're not technically grasses, they're sedges.

Sedges have edges, people know that little saying.

This is a Carex leavenworthii.

It's about the size that you see right here.

There's some similar ones in the state, Carex appalachica, Carex radiata.

>>Yep.

>>All fine-textured.

Evergreen.

Hiding places.

Lots of great cover for our insects and little critters.

>>Yes.

>>And so you can have a fine-textured sedge like this, >>And a perfect lawn substitute.

>>There you go.

Perfect lawn substitute.

It can take mowing, but you never have to do anything to it in the garden.

>>Yeah.

>>Right.

>>Not at all.

>>Here's another sedge.

>>Yes.

>>This is a blue-green color.

This broad leaf.

This is a great liriope substitute.

>>Yes.

Yes.

>>Dry shade.

>>Dry shade.

I love this plant.

>>I get questions a lot.

>>I've got it at my house.

>>Dry shade.

What can I have for dry?

And this is the height.

Cool seedheads in the early, early spring.

Late winter, early spring.

And birds will eat those seedheads.

So it does double duty again, because it's one of our great evergreens, winter interest, and it hosts wildlife.

>>Baby bunnies hid under them last spring.

>>Even better.

I like that.

There you go.

That's a new one.

>>It was.

>>I gotta say the coup de grace.

>>Ah, yes.

>>Right.

Yours and my favorite.

Packera aurea, Golden Ragwort.

This is what it's gonna look like now and all winter.

>>Yep.

>>In the spring, it'll send up flower shoots up to two feet tall.

>>Extra bonus.

>>Extra bonus, the flower.

But this plant does a lot of double duty as a ground cover.

It can recede.

You can see about the height and the size of it now.

But it has two other great characteristics.

One is it grows under walnuts.

Lots of things do not grow under walnuts because of the juglone toxicity.

And more importantly, across the state, it's deer-resistant.

I mean, they just flat out don't eat it.

>>Elevates it high on my list.

>>Elevates it very high.

So we love to use this and it can be combined with all these other things that we talked about.

>>Look at those textures.

>>Yeah.

Shade for most of this.

And even part sun to full sun on the Packera.

>>Yes.

>>So it does a lot of double duty.

>>I'll put that on my side.

>>So if you wanna hold that one, and last but not least, one of our beautiful evergreen ferns here in the state.

This is wood fern, Dryopteris marginalis.

It's a very upright fern.

It's very useful in a garden to get that upright architecture.

And you can use this, again, with some of the things that we've already looked at.

>>Just for the different textures.

>>Just for the textures.

You've got a complete garden - >>Yeah.

>>with like, three or four things.

And if you make one of them sort of your anchor plant, your Golden Ragwort or your sedges, have lots of those, and then you have these upright ferns coming up through it or a burst of red from your shrub, you got a garden and it's pretty simple.

>>And it's December and January and February.

>>And you're loving it.

>>Yes.

>>And your friends wanna know what all you've got planted.

>>Exactly.

>>Yeah.

So we've talked a little bit about these great shade things.

So one other really fun plant I have, we'd really love to talk about this.

On the side here, we've got a twofer in one pot.

At the nursery, this happens.

>>Mind you, this is a nursery plant.

It's very tiny.

>>It's tiny.

So this is inkberry.

It can get up to four or five feet tall.

It gets these lovely blackberries, the female.

Again, this is in the holly family, It looks kind of like a boxwood leaf and we use it like a boxwood.

You can let it be loose, you can prune it tightly.

make it a more formal plant.

Again, evergreen.

>>Yes.

>>And in the pot is another example of how these seedheads become really beautiful in the winter, late fall and going into winter.

This is a beautiful plant at this height, Rhexia virginica, meadowsweet.

And it gets these beautiful pink flowers.

You're probably familiar with it yourself.

>>Yes I am.

Beautiful.

>>And then you get these adorable jugs.

And if you sit around or have time when you're strolling your garden, you look, you'll see little holes in the bottom of these jugs.

And those are insects that sometimes bore in there and spend their winter inside that little jug.

>>So it's a insect condo.

>>Insect condo.

(both laughing) And it's gorgeous.

And you get a little frost or a little snow on this and these little jugs sticking up through the air, and you have this really exciting thing to look at all winter.

So seedheads are really important, and you wanna leave those, like you said, until in the warmer areas, March, in the colder areas, maybe even into early April, before you cut 'em down and let your insect condo be there all year.

>>Exactly.

>>As well as your interest.

>>Janet, this is wonderful information because all of this will add winter interest and add so much to our garden.

>>Yes.

>>So thank you for sharing your enthusiasm and expertise.

>>Absolutely.

Thank you.

>>Yes.