A GARDEN FOR ALL SEASONS - EVEN WINTER (From St Albans & Harpenden Review)

A GARDEN FOR ALL SEASONS - EVEN WINTER

4:15pm Sunday 3rd January 2010 in

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Over the last few weeks our gardens have been turned into winter wonderlands and with the intense cold weather there has been very little incentive to think of getting on with any jobs that need attending to except, of course, clearing paths etc.

With a covering of snow and sparkling frost turning the dullest of gardens into places of beauty we should take time to think what the garden looks like under its snowy blanket. Even though we are less likely to be out and about in the garden during the winter months it helps to lighten this all too often dark and dreary time if we have something interesting to look at.

This isn’t difficult to do; the trick is to plant about two-thirds of your garden with evergreen shrubs. For added interest seek out plants with a variety of textures and leaf colours as well as those stars of winter, the shrubs that flower at this inhospitable time of year. Whether you are planning on restructuring your garden or starting from scratch it is tempting to lash out and buy big. Not only is this an expensive way of doing it, as obviously the prices rise in proportion to how long it took the nursery to grow the plant, any shrubs that have become accustomed to life in a container may take longer to establish than smaller plants who roots grow more readily in open soil.

Before Christmas I talked of the impact that the mahonias and Choisya ternata ‘Sundance’ make in the winter garden. I would add to these one of my particular favourites Elaegnus pungens ‘Maculata’. Unpruned this can reach up to 3.5m high and is guaranteed to brighten up any dark corner in your garden. It is a tough plant and seems to be able to cope with whatever the weather throws at it. As well as having leaves with a central splash of rich yellow it bears tiny white flowers that are blessed with a delicate perfume.