Winter Uninterest

I don't know why I think it's so funny that gardening magazines promote "winter interest" in the garden.  I feel an obligation to try, and it doesn't work.  Here is Joe-pye weed, a six-foot tall flower with a feathery seed head.  It's a source of food (for birds), so I keep them up.  In fact, you can see a stake with a curve, which was my attempt to keep them standing.  Between the snow, the wind, and the bitter temperatures, these poor plants collapsed.  The seed heads are buried and encrusted in an icy covering of re-melted snow. Who knew my winter interest attempt could be so uninteresting?