How to Cure Wintertime Blues in the Sunshine State
Even though Florida has the mildest winters in the eastern United States with lots of sunshine and temperatures that rarely drop below 40°F, many Floridians feel their winter landscape can still look just as drab, lifeless, and boring as a winter landscape in the northeast. But it doesn’t have to be this way. In fact, there are a handful of fun ways to liven up your property and make it a welcoming, enjoyable space to both view from inside your warm home and to use as a functional outdoor living space even when it’s a bit chilly out.
How? We’ve put together a quick list of four effective ways to beat those winter blues and add some warmth and color to your landscape beyond Florida’s sunny rays.
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Introduce hardy winter plants and flowers to your property
Many native Floridians are unaware of how well several winter plants and flowers do year round in their own home state. By simply planting cold-weather blooming shrubs and flowers, you can add fantastic pops of colors to help stamp out the bland, bleak aesthetic your property may be giving off. A few annuals that can be planted in Florida in winter include Calendula, Delphinium, geraniums, pansies, petunias, snapdragons, according to The University of Florida. Then there’s the eye-catching camellia, an antique Floridian shrub, according to an article by “Orlando Sentinel.” Finally, one potentially overlooked flower for a Florida winter is the impatien, one of the only flowers that come in a rainbow of color options to match perfectly with your style—or maybe your window shutters or other color elements of your home. Used collectively, any of the above mentioned cool season-tolerable flowers will help enrich, enliven, and beautify your garden and home, and as a result, help brighten the stark mood that is sometimes brought on during the winter months.
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Hang bird feeders
Hanging a few bird feeders around your property, close to your windows, is another great way to add a different kind of color and life to your outdoor space—by attracting wildlife. You can attract different varieties of birds by setting up several bird feeders in various colors and sizes, and fill them with different mixes of food. In addition, if you plant winter hardy bushes like crab apples and holly berry, they not only add a pop of color themselves, they attract an even greater variety of birds who seek shelter from their brush and nourishment from their fruit.
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Add a firepit to your outdoor living space
A firepit in Florida? Well, yeah! Winter in northern Florida is still chilly. Adding a firepit only expands and enhances your outdoor living space and activities. By adding a firepit, you also increase usability of your outdoor living space, too, so you are more likely to enjoy your property year round. Imagine cozying up with your loved ones under a soft blanket and a mug of hot cocoa or a hot toddy around the holidays next to a roaring fire. Delightful, isn’t it? Now imagine making this a holiday tradition. Adding a firepit and enhancing your outdoor living space is definitely one way to cheer up a cold winter landscape in your backyard.
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Invest in quality outdoor lighting
Don’t just add color to your wintertime landscape, add more visual interest. Install outdoor lighting to your home and property to complement your now colorful landscape and—quite literally—brighten it. In fact, landscape lighting is the only way to retain your surroundings charm after the Floridian sun goes down. You can choose to illuminate your home, driveway, walkways, garden, pool, and more, which beautifies your property as well as provides visual aids in its dark areas. Landscape lighting design is just as important as landscape design itself, and helps you appreciate (while showing off!) all the ideas above: your colorful winter-hardy plants and flowers, your awesome new firepit, and, of course, your lovely landscape design.
The Sunshine State Just Got Brighter
Though winter is here to stay for a few months, it doesn’t mean that you must endure a dull landscape. With the helpful tips above, you can experience beautiful flowers and colorful birds year round to help brighten up a monotone landscape. And now, you can even enjoy your outdoor living space well into the evenings by adding a firepit and landscape lighting. Landscape lighting also has the added benefit of allowing you to see all these pretty pops of color day and night while adding a new design element to your home.
We hope this blog was inspiring and you feel compelled to take on a wintertime project to make it cheerier. Have fun! And see you in the spring!
