I am a plant lover. To me, the word “garden” conjures images of foliage small and large, leathery and soft, silver and green. Sweeps of flowers and grasses swaying in the breeze. And then comes winter, and the party’s over.

If your garden disappears in winter—or looks so forlorn you wish it would disappear—now’s the time to turn over a new leaf. Better yet, forget about leaves for a while and think about the garden in terms of space. In winter, the redolence of late summer and autumn is a lingering memory; the softness of spring blossoms, a slumbering hope. The reality is frost-stripped twigs and chill winds skittering withered leaves across bare ground, a good starting point for reconsidering the garden. How might the space become more inviting and eye-catching, more useful and water-efficient?

Patios are excellent features in the garden, providing visual interest as well as function with little or no investment in water. Enlarging a patio to accommodate alfresco entertaining is a simple way to reduce the area given to lawn watering. If the dining patio proportions are already ample, partially covering the area with an arbor or ramada provides immediate shade for living space, making it more inviting. The addition of wisteria or silkvine wrapping a corner post and draping the arbor top helps shade the patio in summer, and requires only a modest amount of water. The rope-like stems of these vines have beautiful form in the winter.

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