Nontraditional Gardens: Winter and Rock Gardens

Many homeowners love gardening but find themselves limited in their gardening activity because of seasonal and climate conditions. Gardens come in all shapes, sizes, and, most importantly, styles. Sure, your local climate will probably influence your gardening options—in fact, it should influence your garden design, but rarely is the region where you live an excuse to not be out there working in your yard.

Rock Gardens
Rock gardens are more than just gardens made from rocks as some, if not most, include small plants. Rock gardens are simply gardens that imitate regions dominated by rocky terrain and drought. Though rock gardens imitate these regions, by no means do they need to be naturalistic gardens. You can set up your rocks and plants to make any stylized or pleasing arrangement, like any other garden. Often, rock gardens are planted by homeowners who live in a rocky or drought-prone area. If you live in a drought-prone area but aren't crazy about the idea of a rock garden, you should look into xeriscaping, a different type of low water garden.

Zen Garden
Zen gardens are a specific type of rock garden that, in fact, can be designed without any plants. The main materials of a Zen garden are rock, sand, and, occasionally, grass and other small plant life. Essentially, a Zen garden is a symbolic garden where the sand is raked to imitate the sea or ocean and the rocks are fashioned after mountains. The typical Zen garden could be described as a decorative sandbox with raised edging. Often, a garden bench is set close by for viewing. Unlike other gardens that promote wandering around and multiple views, the Zen garden is usually meant to be viewed from a single, stationary point.

Winter Gardens
A winter garden can be planted with flowers, shrubs, and vegetables that will begin to grow as soon as part of the plant is warmed above freezing. Hardly any plant life actively grows in sub-freezing temperatures. That said, many plants will die or go dormant for the entire winter season at the first frost. For these reasons, winter gardens can actually be a better idea in warmer climates, where the temperature may dip below freezing a handful of times each winter but never has to endure weeks or months of snow cover and freezing temperatures. Cabbage, broccoli, beets, carrots, and onions are all common winter garden vegetables.

Of course, evergreen trees can survive most harsh winter conditions. Naturally, evergreen trees don't afford the same flexibility as spring, summer, and fall gardens, but few gardens are as beautiful as a patch of well-placed evergreen trees covered in snow or ice. Evergreen trees and other winter garden plants can also be surrounded with rocks, garden furniture, garden art, and other permanent structures. As for caring for your winter trees, you probably know that you should not shake branches to remove snow or ice—although it's okay to gently brush them off—but you may not know that it's helpful to continue to water your evergreen trees until the ground freezes. Even when the air temperature has reached freezing, the ground will stay thawed for some period of time.

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