If we are honest, a winter garden rarely has the same aura and beauty as peak summer, but in Jonathan Scott and Zooey Deschanel’s Brentwood home, it’s an entirely different story.
Their 1938 Georgian Revival, affectionately known as , sits on just over an acre of mature grounds. Originally designed by architect Gerard Colcord, the home is surrounded by sycamore trees, red brick paths, and white wood siding, making the property a trove of winter garden ideas that are worth replicating.
Zooey and Jonathan designed the planting to look good beyond the warmer months, with evergreen shrubs providing shape throughout the coldest months of the calendar.
Southern California’s mild winters certainly help, but the idea works in colder climates too. When planning a winter garden, remember that it needs some structure to keep it looking considered throughout the year – which is where evergreens come into their own.
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The American Boxwood Shrub, available at Trees.com (formerly Fast Growing Trees), is a classic choice for adding structure and greenery to the garden. You can easily shape its foliage into a neat hedge or plant it along a porch to create a year-round screen.
These boxwoods are a versatile choice for adding year-round greenery, just like Jonathan and Zooey. Their compact growth makes them well-suited to topiary, bonsai, and decorative pots, while their slow-growing habit means they need relatively little upkeep.
An evergreen shrub is an easy way to add privacy and structure to your outdoor space. Plant it as a hedge to create a more secluded backyard, whether you're looking to screen a patio or carve out a cozy garden retreat.
Japanese Boxwoods are an easy-care way to bring structure and greenery to the garden. Their neat, evergreen growth makes them a good choice for beginners and, when planted together, they can form an attractive privacy screen.
Ideal for smaller gardens, this planter has a bright white finish that keeps patios feeling beautiful. The baked clay gives roots plenty of room to grow, while the generous shape makes a useful home for seasonal plants.
These Felco pruning shears are designed for precise cuts, with hardened blades that make light work of tougher stems and branches. A dependable garden essential, they're particularly useful for keeping roses and other plants neatly pruned.
Once summer perennials die back, gardens can quickly start to look bare. However, evergreen hedges and clipped shrubs give the garden shape while also helping define paths, borders, and different areas of the yard. In winter, when the garden has less color, the shape and texture of these plants become much more noticeable.
In Jonathan and Zooey's case, you can see this along the brick walkways, where evergreen spheres sit beneath the trees. Garden Content Editor, Tenielle Jordison, says this kind of planting is one of the simplest ways to make a garden work year-round.
'The most reliable way to approach winter landscape design is to focus on the evergreens that make up the physical frame of the garden,' Tenielle explains.
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'The spherical hedges along Zooey and Jonathan’s brick pavements look like classic boxwood or a hardy box alternative, and they establish a strong structure for the surrounding greenery. When seasonal perennials fade in late fall, these evergreen shapes keep providing interest. They hold their form through the winter months and can look especially beautiful in frost, dew, or low winter light.'
Plus, while we can't all have a Brentwood estate, we can easily bring their approach into a small garden, too. Tenielle recommends potting dwarf boxwood spheres in containers to frame a small patio, or planting a low evergreen border along a narrow path. It's a beautiful, low-maintenance example of why winter planting is worth considering right from the start.