vii: Sage Advice
The hibernating gardener Callum Halstead If your life is anything like mine, then you may feel that you barely see your own garden during the winter. If I was more organised, I could possibly sneak half an hour in the garden between sunrise and when I have to leave for work, but let’s be realistic— I’ve never been a morning person, and the odds of this occurring are incredibly slim. By the time I return home it’s already dark. At the weekend, when I may just about have time for a glance out of the back door, a glance is all I usually manage between the weekly food shop, the date with the in-laws, the trip to IKEA or, on occasion, a visit to another garden. On the rare occurrence that the stars align and a weekend remains plan-free, it is almost guaranteed to be raining so I find it’s best not to get my hopes up. For these reasons, I tend to write winter off as far as my garden is concerned— but this has prompted me to wonder how I could alter what I’m growing in order to get more out of it at this time of year, an exercise that other gardeners may also find useful. From December to February, garden writers everywhere publish article after article about
creating winter gardens. I very nearly did this myself, before having second thoughts and completely re-writing this column. Many extol the virtues of planting brightly coloured Dogwoods (Cornus sp.) with their vibrant green, red, yellow or purple stems, amid mounds of heavily perfumed Sweet Box (Sarcococca spp.), punctuating the borders with Hellebores (Helleborus spp.) of every variety and under-planting all with Cyclamen (Cyclamen sp.), Winter Aconites (Eranthis sp.) and Snowdrops (Galanthus sp.). All of this should, of course, be topped off with a fine multi-stemmed Himalayan Birch (Betula utilis var. jacquemontii), the be-all and end-all of ‘winter-garden’ trees. I’m being overly simplistic here, and I should add that none of this is bad advice, despite how frequently it is repeated. These are all very beautiful and reliable plants that form the backbone of many winter gardens up and down the British Isles, including the one that I work in. If you do find that you have time to spend in your garden at this time of year, then these plants will certainly help to boost the winter interest. For me, however, it just doesn’t make sense to pour a considerable amount of time and energy into creating a display that I will barely get the opportunity to enjoy. So, what do I want from my garden at this time of year? I’m certainly a big fan of seed-heads. Growing anything with good structure, that dies standing up and retains its shape even in death, can provide the garden with some striking winter architecture. Unless your garden has really taken a battering in the December storms, finding beauty in the faded remains of summer and autumn displays is by no means a challenge. If you’re on Instagram, searching for the rather humorous #lovelydeadcrap will give you an idea of the aesthetic: beauty in decay. You may have already had enough of this aesthetic come the end of autumn, but I encourage you to wait until we’ve had some really good frosts before taking the shears to it all. This approach to creating winter interest can be applied anywhere, but it will work particularly well in gardens located in colder regions, prone to frost and snow, where the plants will stand like 31
