The Winter Garden

The Winter Garden

Many people make the mistake of closing their doors at the end of November and forgetting about the garden until warmer spring weather comes around. Winter in the garden can be a wonderful time, the stillness and the quality of the light on a cold, sunny winter's day with hoarfrost on the ground gives the garden an almost etheral beauty. Many plants that looked good throughout the summer have a second lease of life when covered in white frost; the faded flowers of mop headed Hydrangeas and plumes of ornamental grasses like Stipa gigantea and Cortaderia selloana (Pampas Grass) look particularly good at this time of year.

Other plants come into their own at this time of year, the remnants of the autumn berries on Sorbus, Pyracantha, Cotoneaster and ornamental hips on shrub roses all look superb coated in delicate white frost, vibrant colours of the stems of many deciduous shrubs particularly Dogwood and Willows, reds on Cornus alba siberica and Salix alba chermesina, purple on Cornus Kesselringii and Salix daphnoides, green/yellow of Cornus stolonifera flaverimea. Several small growing trees suitable for most gardens also have ornamental bark or twigs, Acer griseum (Paperbark Maple), has lovely cinnamon coloured peeling bark, Prunus serrula (Tibetan Cherry) has highly polished mahogany coloured bark, and many forms of Birch have bright white, papery bark. The unusually 'contorted' stems of Corylus contorta add dramatic architectural form; these also have the bonus of being covered in golden yellow catkins in late winter.

Several shrubs flower during the winter months giving a further burst of colour and many sweetly scented, including Viburnum tinus, a sweetly scented evergreen shrub with flat heads of creamy-white flowers in September until April, Mahonia japonica 'Winter Sun', another sweetly scented evergreen, this time with bright yellow flower spikes from December until February. Others flowering at this time include Vibrunum x bodnantense 'Dawn', Lonicera fragrantissima, Garrya eliptica, Jasminum nudiflorum, Sarcoccoca (Christmas Box) and Hamamelis (Witch Hazel).

Lots of conifers also look at their best at this time of year, the bright green, blues, golds and rusty browns of the foliage along with architectural shapes, add colour and structure to the garden and look superb when planted with winter flowering heathers and ornamental grasses.

Herbaceous perennials are usually regarded as spring and summer plants, but there are some that are at their best early in the year, Helleborus (Hellebore) being a good example. The last few years has seen a surge in the popularity of these plants with many new varieties becoming available with single or double flowers in an impressive range of colours - greens, whites, pinks, reds and deep, almost black purples. Many have unusual speckling on the throat of the flowers enhancing their beauty even more. Helleborus are quite easy to grow, given a semi-shady position and a rich moisture retentive soil. The crowns grow quickly and they also self seed readily, often giving rise to more unusual forms.

The first of the spring bulbs start to appear, white Snowdrops, multi-coloured Crocus and the bright yellow dwarf Iris danfordiae often poking up through a layer of snow as a sign that a new gardening season is on the way.