Winter Wonder

Winter is the time to enjoy fragrance, structure, and what colour remains or emerges in the garden. The first step to overcoming the seasonal grey is to have a solid framework of evergreens. These also give shelter to wildlife, create privacy, dampen noise, and provide a place to hang lights and ornaments. “Evergreen,” is a slight misnomer since not all the plants which retain their leaves all year are, in fact, green. Yellow, purple, and blue are readily available in the winter palette, and variegation adds contrast, shape and pattern. Gardens that combine different textures of foliage can stun without the addition of showy perennial and appeal to the minimalist approach.

Plants that particularly catch the eye in winter include paper birch, coral bark Japanese maples, midwinter fire dogwood, lemon cypress, and hellebores. Cabbages and kale are colourful winter vegetables and Viburnum x bodnantense “Dawn,” Hamamelis, Sarcococca, and Daphne odora add fragrance.

Look for opportunities for quiet reflection in the winter garden. Bulbs breaking ground and buds swelling create anticipation, that childlike pleasure of expectation, and from that feeling, we can draw trust in time. Time does what it has always done, which is to bring change. Whether familiar or novel, welcome or unwelcome, all change is manageable with the very thing that brought it, with time. By all means, take stock, plan, celebrate the wins and recover the losses, but trust that your garden will be ever emerging and always expect, as Oscar Wilde said, the unexpected