Distinctive Bark Adds Texture to Your Garden

Tree bark with distinctive characteristics can liven up your garden during cold season

Add splashes of colour and layers of texture with distinctive tree bark

In fall and winter, well-chosen plantings add interest to your landscape and stand out from the otherwise monochromatic green background.

Tap the power of the bark side with burning bush (Euonymus alatus), a hot pick with searing fall colour and cork-like bark.

Redtwig dogwood (Cornus sericea) and new cultivars of willow (Salix) such as ‘Flame’ offer a stunning show of red, yellow and orange stems after leaves have dropped.

Himalayan (Betula utilis) and Chinese birch (Betula albosinensis) are ghostlike and gorgeous with white trunks and branches, while arbutus (Arbutus menziesii) and strawberry trees (Arbutus unedo) offer up a deeply textured, masterpiece of richly-toned peeling bark.

Finally, paperbark maple (Acer griseum) is equally distinctive with bright cinnamon-toned bark that shreds off in thin papery flakes, while snake bark maple (Acer rufinerve) has a vibrant skin of striped white and green.

An excerpt from “A blast of bold” in Sow Simple, by Christina Symons and John Gillespie.