Make your garden pop during the colder months with vibrant winter flowers that love the cool air, morning frosts, and less sunshine during the shorter days.
We know pansies and violas are great flowering plants in autumn, but what about winter flowers?
Thankfully, there are lots of flowering winter plants to choose from. In fact, now’s the time when some of the hardiest – and prettiest – plants grow in Australia.
When the weather is cold and chilly, your garden tends to go dormant, and can look a bit drab in the shadow of clouds. Adding Australian natives and winter-blooming bushes, you’ll delight in their colourful appearance. A lot of these flowering plants also contain beautiful aromas to entice pollinators, and give our noses something nice as well!
So if your winter garden needs a bit of fresh colour, we’ve compiled a list of 11 of our favourite flowers that grow in the winter.
These plants thrive in the cooler months, defying the notion that there is nothing going on in the winter. Instead, you can create a beautiful winter wonderland full of winter flowering blooms, life, colour and joy.
11 best winter flowering plants
Here is a list of some of the most popular winter flowers Australia.
- Cyclamen
- Protea
- Serruria
- Daphne
- Wattle
- Banksia
- Clivia
- Grevillea
- Camellia
- ‘Silver princess’ gum
- Leucadendron
Cyclamen
Winter is the perfect time to create a carpet of hardy cyclamens. Cyclamens prefer cool temperatures between 10°C to 21°C, bright, indirect light and well-draining soil that is rich in organic matter. They prefer to be kept evenly moist but not waterlogged.
Pair cyclamens with bunches of dancing hellebores – also known as winter roses – because they both enjoy the same growing conditions. (Hellebores are a popular choice of perennial plant for winter gardens in Australia due to their ability to thrive in cooler temperatures and provide colour during the colder months. They’re known for their beautiful, rose-like flowers that bloom in winter in a variety of colours, including white, pink, purple, and green.)
Protea
The hardiest of all proteas, ‘Pink Ice’ lights up any winter garden with its soft dusky pink petals, each fringed in white and the whole velvety bloom nestled in a rosette-like cushion of leaves.
The protea is a South African native, but ‘Pink Ice’ was developed in Australia. It likes low-pH, well-drained soil, in a low-water use garden, grows to a grand 2.5m, and the flowers can be cut for indoors, either fresh or dried.
Serruria
With their dainty, long-lasting, hot pink flowers cuddled in fine, needle-like foliage, serruria is also commonly known as blushing bride and, as a cut flower, is becoming a favourite for winter weddings. It’s best suited to a container filled with well-drained, low-pH potting mix, and put in full sun with regular watering where it will grow to 1m. So bedeck the deck, park it on a porch or beautify your balcony!
Daphne
Daphne can be a bit fussy, but it’s worth the extra effort when its fleshy, pale pink to white flowers emerge and their sweet perfume pervades your garden from mid-winter.
Make sure to plant in a semi-shaded spot where it’s protected from frosts, winds and afternoon sun, in moist, free-draining, low-pH soil and add plenty of compost. It thrives in cool to temperate climates, but collapses where it’s humid.
Wattle
There are some wonderful winter wattles, among them the Flinders wattle, with its soft, weeping form and magical clusters of popping, fluffy yellow balls.
It thrives in poor soils, and survives sea breezes, droughts and light frosts. Use it as a windbreak, a screen, or if you need to control erosion on a slope and prune regularly to keep it dense and compact as it can grow to a straggly 3m.
Banksia
Stunning orange candlesticks of the heath banksia stand out like beacons in the cold, grey of winter. It grows to 4-6m so it’s useful as a screen or windbreak and it’s also frost and salt-spray tolerant.
Many dwarf varieties are now available and brighten up your backyard without taking up so much room. Whatever the size, it needs well-drained, low-pH (acidic) soil and good sunlight.
Clivia
The lush, long foliage of clivias erupt in winter when sprays of iridescent orange and yellow or gleaming white flowers emerge.
One of the best low-care plants around, they look most effective under a big evergreen tree, or as a border along a shady passageway. Put them in well-drained, slightly acidic soil and water weekly into the soil, not the foliage. Fungal disease is its one weak point.
Grevillea
You’ll find a grevillea flowering somewhere at any time of the year, but the ‘Winpara Gem’ flowers all year round. What a bonus! This fast-growing Australian native winter shrub produces masses of red spider-like flower clusters, looks great as a hedge or screen and grows to 3m. For a hedge, plant 2.5m apart. It’s frost hardy and requires little water once established in well-drained, slightly alkaline soil. And birds will love the winter nectar treats!
Regular trims keep the ‘winpara gem’ neat and dense –and you can bring the cut flowers inside.
Camellia
Camellias are known as the ‘Queen of winter flowers’. But not all camellias are the same. C. sasanqua flowers from March to June and likes full sun.
When its flowers fall, they shatter, spreading petals over the ground like a luxurious carpet. C. japonica (above) flowers from April to October and likes partial shade. Its flowers fall intact so you can put them in a bowl indoors.
‘Silver Princess’ Gum
Who needs petals when the ‘Silver Princess’ gum gives you brilliant swirls of gold-specked red stamens making dance moves in late winter. It’s quite an act considering they’re 4cm across. An exquisite ornamental in any sunny spot, it grows to 6m and its pendulus, white-frosted branches are a feature all year round. As a West Australian native, it can struggle with too much east coast humidity.
Hungry birds and insects will relish the rare winter feast of nectar.
Leucadendron
Leucadendrons have petal envy with other flowers as they don’t grow them, instead they produce bracts – or modified leaves. But, who would swap them for petals when the bracts come in a dazzling range of winter colours, from cream to salmon, to yellow, blazing orange, deepest pink and richest burgundy.
Leucadendrons are drought and salt tolerant, and are happiest in sandy and clay soils.
They also make beautiful flower arrangements after the bracts open to reveal cone-like flowers.
Winter gardening tips
- Clear out the old summer mulch and put down a fresh layer to keep roots insulated against the cold.
- Cut back on watering – there’s often enough morning dew to add moisture to the soil and too much water can cause fungal diseases.
- If feeding in winter, use fertiliser that’s low in nitrogen and high in potassium, which helps plants stay strong.
