Features
The Garden in Winter
Winter in an Irish garden – we will have rain for sure; we might have snow; most of us will have some frost. There will be wind, gales and storms, hail, fog, drizzle and mist, but there will be sunshine too and many of these weather conditions in just one day. The winter season can be unpredictable; we never know from one day to the next.
Thankfully our winter season is short; even if there is calamitous snow and a few weeks of freezing temperatures, it will not last long. The soil can be worked throughout most of the short days of our winter months. Not long after the last leaves fall from the trees and shrubs, new ones will emerge. The weather we cannot control, but there is a lot we can do to make our gardens beautiful in winter.
Autumn Clear-Up
As the days get shorter, we concentrate our efforts on tidying up after the previous summer. The brown dead stems and withered leaves turn to mush in the late autumn rains. Using secateurs, the tidy gardener can chop away these ugly stalks, and the clever gardener puts them on the compost heap. Fallen leaves on the ground can be raked and gathered, then bundled up on a separate heap; these will slowly rot down to make a weed free compost in two years’ time. The result is organic mulch, a nutrient rich crumbly mix to include in a planting hole.
Last year’s compost, this year’s seaweed or the previous season’s animal dung can be spread over the borders while the soil is moist and unfrozen. Carpeting the soil around the dormant herbaceous perennials and sleeping shrubs will insulate the soil, feed the worms and give life to the earth. Weed seeds will be covered, and with light excluded under a 7.5cm deep mulch, they won’t germinate! Any time between the end of the growing season and the new spring growth is the ideal time to feed the soil with a blanket of organic matter. Slowly it will release the nutrients throughout the following growing season, the bacteria working harder as the soil warms up.
Frozen Beauty
Not only is it a time to work, but there is also plenty to admire in a well planted garden in winter. Berries of holly and Skimmia, white trunks of birch trees, all add interest, but so too do colourful stems, structural shrubs, grasses, bulbs and scented blooms.
Stems of dog woods, Cornus alba, will glow red in the low winter sunshine, the fallen leaves leaving shining stems with a sealing wax glow, never fading until the green cloth of foliage cover their bareness in May. In small gardens the variegated cultivar, Cornus alba ‘Ivory Halo’ reaches only 45cm high, half that of the normal dogwood. C. sanguinea ‘Midwinter Glow’ is a burning bush of heated orange and yellow branches and twigs, brightening up the borders through the darkest of our winter days.
If the frost glitters over the stems of these colourful shrubs they will take on a new dimension, sprinkled with crystals glittering in the morning light. The structural shapes of evergreens and mounds of twiggy brown deciduous shrubs will be blanketed in white, their shapes giving definition to the garden.
Frost sparkles are caught in the browned stalks of ornamental grasses such as Miscanthus sinensis. The bleached cream inflorescences of Stipa tennuissima capture the sprinkles of frozen glitter, rendering the garden motionless in the late dawn of a January day.
Bulb Burst
Autumn planted bulbs and corms will emerge from the cold earth; colourful crocus – yellow, white, purple and blue, carpet bare soil in February. Golden winter aconites glow bright, even before the snowdrops. The golden cups of flowers, Eranthis hyemalis spread out like a picnic rug underneath deciduous trees. Snowdrop flowers of Galanthus nivalis and related species bring a white light of hope as the darkest days lose their night to each lengthening day. Every year the bulbs increase in number under the soil to give the garden its early show.
On the milder mornings, when the sunlight slowly pulls away the blanket of fog to expose the garden to its rays and the temperatures rise, a winter garden can be filled with sweet fragrance. Winter sweet, Chimonanthus praecox, pale yellow blooms, bashful and pendant, delicate and demure, hang unassuming as their sweet spicy aroma drifts though the air. Planted close to a wall or fence, this deciduous shrub is said to flower with greater profusion, displaying clusters of blooms all along the pale grey stems.
The upright growing Viburnum farreri carries groups of small white trumpets that emerge from tight pink buds. Sweet and delicious, strong in the sun, it is heaven in the nostrils. The pinker, slightly larger blooms of V. x bodnantense ‘Dawn’ also bestow an equal beauty and delight. If the weather outside is too frightful and too cold for even the most vigorous mulch spreading to warm you up, try cutting a few short stems of these Viburnums and bring them into the house. The will last for five to seven days in a glass of water and be the most pleasant natural air freshener.
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Miscanthus sinensis with a frost coating. -
Snowdrops, Galanthus nivalis are old favourites and a welcome sight each winter. -
Dogwood stem, Cornus alba.
Winter Plans
Winter is also a time to plan for the coming season, to assess the past and create new borders. One of the nicest jobs during the winter months is browsing through the seed catalogues. This important task is best done on cold, windy wet days. Tools required include a comfortable chair, perhaps a glowing wood fire, a pen and a cup of coffee or perhaps a glass of hot port.
Don’t forget a calculator to add up all those packets of seeds that you ticked off in the warm glow of the fire!
Look through the bulb catalogues too. Spring planted bulbs such as Amaryllis belladonna and Nerine x bowdenii will give great colour and pleasure at the end of the summer and autumn. Mail order shrubs and trees and catalogues can also be browsed – the winter months are the prime time for planting. Bare rooted shrubs, trees and hedging are cheaper than containerized shrubs and mail order companies will happily post them during the dormant season. This can be a useful way of acquiring more unusual varieties than may be available locally. There are Irish nurseries that will provide these services.
Many of the great gardeners will tell you, if the garden looks good in winter it will look good all year around. Devoid of colourful flowers and undressed of foliage, we can see the basic structure of the design. In winter we can see the failings of our layout and take action to address the short-comings. Providing the soil is not frozen nor water logged, the soil can be dug and prepared. For soils that are heavy and for new plots, double digging can be done; cultivating the soil to two spades depth is a great way of warming up on a cold day. Soil left in clods over the winter months will be worked by the weather, frosts and rains, breaking the soil lumps into a finer structure. Harder frosts will kill pests.
Plants that need re-positioning can be moved during the winter. As soon as the leaves have fallen and until the buds start breaking green in the spring, most trees and shrubs can be lifted with care from the soil. Cutting through the soil, as wide as possible around the plant, make a root ball manageable to lift. The secret is to disturb the root ball as little as possible and get as much of it as you can.
For bigger specimens it is good to plan well ahead, cut a wide circle around the plant the previous spring before lifting in the winter. This will ensure new root growth within the rootball, producing lots of small feeder roots, helping to re-establish the moved plant more quickly. Cutting through the roots and reducing their surface area for uptake of water will mean that irrigation for the subsequent growing season will have to be carefully monitored, ensuring that the plant does not dry out. Applying a liberal amount of organic mulch after replanting will help reduce moisture loss from the soil. A reduced root system will have a reduced ability to anchor the plant, so staking might be required for larger plants or for those in more exposed situations.
Winter can be a time of planning, preparation and even rest. The winter garden can be filled with the most magical of moments, subtle joys and sweetest scents. The cold days can be warmed by work, the wet days can be restful by the fire, browsing through catalogues and reading garden books. The icy days can be a chance to admire the garden in still life. Winter is not just the end of last year; it is the beginning of the next.
Gillian Westbrook has been appointed to the new position of
General Manager with IOFGA. Coming from a background in the regulatory area...
