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Step 1
Add color. Holly (Ilex), with its bright red berries, is an obvious choice if it will grow in your climate zone. Other shrubs with bright berries include winterberry (a deciduous holly), Pyracantha (firethorn) and heavenly bamboo (Nandina). Blueberry and red-osier dogwood (Cornus stolonifera) have colorful stems.
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Step 2
Add form. Deciduous trees with interesting form range from majestic elms to delicate Japanese maples. A corkscrew willow (Salix matsudana) or Harry Lauder's walking stick (Corylus avellana) could make a striking winter specimen.
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Step 3
Consider texture. For interesting bark, choose birch, paperbark maple (Acer griseum), sycamore or crape myrtle.
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Step 4
Add contrast. Dark evergreen specimens stand out against snow and winter skies. Choices could include juniper, rhododendron, camellia, holly, cotoneaster, fir and blue spruce. For something really unusual, try a monkey puzzle tree (Araucaria).
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Step 5
Invite birds. Provide food in the form of shrubs with winter berries or put out seed or suet to attract colorful birds such as blue jays, robins and cardinals. Anna's hummingbirds are attracted to the red berries of holly in passing, but they need feeder nectar to entice them to stay.
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Step 6
Add flowers and scent. In late winter, daphne beguiles with an odor that can be detected yards away. Plants with flowers that appear before spring include Lenten rose (Helleborus orientalis), camellia and flowering quince.
