Sometimes nothing is drearier than a winter garden, especially in the wet. If you’re like me, you mostly grow annuals and perennials, and only clear up and cut down in early spring, in order to leave seed-heads for the birds and protect the soil over winter. So, right now, you and I are both looking at a drab, untidy muddle of rotting leaves and stems. Every year, I’m more tempted to do an autumn clear-up for that very reason.
But the view could look better with some structure and, in the post-Christmas lull,now is the moment to resolve (after all, it's nearly New Year) to create interesting view in time for next winter. I have a rather imprecise box ball coming along, but evergreens are not the only solution.
For other ideas, you could read The Winter Garden, an article on the website of well-known garden-designer, author and TV presenter Roddy Llewellyn (and while you’re thinking, “Wasn’t he…er?” Yes, friend of Princess Margaret).
He believes strongly in “eye-arresters” though unfortunately we don’t get to see those in his Cotswold garden, which include a giant white tulip, a spider’s web gate and a model church. He says, “All these ingredients…give me the greatest of pleasure, even on the greyest of winter days.”
Among the photos that are on site, though, is one showing the back of Princess Margaret’s garden, on the edge of Hyde Park – a teasing bit of trompe l’oeil, even on the dullest of days.
OK, so we’re not all going to get a model church in the back yard, but do you have an eye-catcher that lends form to your winter garden?
Click on Comment below and let us know what it is.
...Landscape Juice Network
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