January in the garden

Quote of the month
He who plants a tree, plants hope

Why do so many people retreat indoors the second it gets cold! I bet there are thousands of people who work indoors who go straight to work and then straight home and spend the weekends indoors in the winter.

The trouble is (and I’ve thought about this often) that not only do you seldom see the world outside but it’s the beginning of the cold period and near the end that you miss so much, if you are lucky and you live to 74 (the average male life expectancy) you rarely notice the first 14 when you’re young then that’s down to 60 years not bad you may say but that’s only sixty times you will really see the winter not many. Then knock two thirds off that if you work indoors and don’t go out in the winter so that’s 20 winters if you’re lucky that you will notice anything in the real world.

Only 20 times to see the clear sun shining on Cornus ‘midwinter fire’ setting the border ablaze with its magnificent stems then gone again, Only 20 times to smell the sweetest scent from the sweet box so far from the plant sometimes you have to follow your nose to find it.

These days are not of summer… but winter…Not just for the brave or stupid but for people who want to be alive and connected to the earth they live on. Well enough of the rambling. The point I’m trying to make is at times we have come into the line of fire from winter visitors who are perhaps upset that there is not enough to see in the form of flowers in winter.

Well my answer to the those visitors or anyone wishing to visit in winter has many layers,
But the reasons to visit are;

To really know a garden you should visit in all the seasons, in the summer there is a riot of colour and fragrance, lush leaves and interesting colour patterns on leaves and it’s easy to overlook the symmetrical design of the salutation, its bare framework in winter is worth seeing alone.

But also to see a garden in the depths of winter then to come back at the height of summer is the ultimate contrast it’s like being in a completely different place.

In the winter garden there is beauty of so many coloured stems like our Cornus alba ‘sibirica’ with its strong red stems or interesting shapes that are hidden by foliage in summer like prunus incisa ‘Kojo-no-mai’ with the most unusual brown twisting stems, of course the winter has many flowering shrubs are that much more precious when we come across them in the winter garden.

Evergreens and conifers come into play with their different shades of greens, silvers and purples and we have many.

Our trees as well stand out in winter with their ghost like silhouettes and for a small garden we have hundreds of them, so the next time you are thinking about what to do on a Sunday afternoon remember gardens aren’t only about flowers.

Steve