The Winter Garden
27/12/2007
I will continue to look at structure for the next few entries,
because in winter when so much is brown and bare, the attention focuses on the structural features of the garden.
Plants with winter foliage and bark colour come into their own, with low winter light emphasising qualities not always obvious in summer. This planting in the gravel garden [the missing seat has gone into winter storage] still looks surprisingly lush and texturally interesting in late December. Now is the time to identify evergreen plants that we can use and plan where to put them for maximum winter impact.
Visiting gardens is often not an option, but we can keep our eyes open when out and about, visit garden centres and read up on the selection of plants available, considering your gardens soil and aspect.
This corner is very sheltered and the soil is well drained, so the euphorbias and rosemary do very well. The bamboo is trimmed of its side shoots up to 1/3rd of the height of the culms, with thin and old ones cut out every summer, so that low winter sunshine can show up the shiny golden stems. This tall clump of Phyllostachys aureosulcata var.aureocaulis makes great impact with it’s height and adds movement to the garden, swaying gently with every breeze and bowing dramatically low in winter gales. It has made a sizable clump after ten years but is very well behaved, unlike a large leaved, common variety, whose name escapes me, that did run and was dug out.
Euphorbia characias subsp. Wulfenii ‘Purple and Gold’ on the left builds up to a sizeable mound changing through the year with foliage taking on a purple colour with the cold weather, developing large heads of golden flowers in spring. The other euphorbia is ‘Portugese Vevet’, valued for it’s foliage more than the flowers, and the rosemary smells wonderfully in summer heat, and always suprises me by flowering so early in spring!
Stipa ‘Gigantea’ flower stems are still catching the light, but in a less sheltered position they would have a more tattered look. Yucca filamentosa ‘Golden Sword’ adds yellow variegated leaves, but has flowered, spectacularly, only once. In the foreground is one of my favourites, Chionachloa rubra, a colourful and tactile dome of fine leaves, taking on a rich russet colour with cold weather. In 4yrs. it has never had a dead leaf so always looks good, with dainty flowers in summer.
A winter garden need not be dull or uninteresting, so get planning now for next year.
