WINTER GARDENS

GRASSES SUCH AS THE AFRICAN FEATHER GRASS, PENNISETUM MACROURUM, ON THE RIGHT OF THE IMAGE, ARCH OUT OVER THE PATH IN DAN PEARSON’S GARDEN AT HILLSIDE IN SOMERSET, ENGLAND

OPPOSITE PAGE

UMBELLIFER SEED HEAD SHOWS ITS INTRICATE CONSTRUCTION IN THE GREAT DIXTER GARDEN

Our doors often close on the garden over the colder months of the year under the misconception that little is going on. The mesmerising new book, Winter Gardens, reveals the life and beauty behind a world so often disregarded as dormant. With a foreword by renowned garden designer Dan Pearson, whose own garden features in the book along with 11 others, photographer Andrew Montgomery and garden writer Clare Foster have knocked it out the park with insightful text and spellbinding imagery. We feature an extract from their large-format, sumptuous new book

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Winter is not a season that you immediately associate with the garden, but with growth slowed, and time with it, the dark months allow us the opportunity to reflect.There is time to think, without the need to necessarily do, and time to look at the bones of the garden without the demand – and indeed, the distraction– of the growing season.Winter is a time to consider the cycle that we are part of, by engaging in the gardening of a place.Though stripped of its summer cloak of vegetation, the apparent monochrome of a winter garden is anything but. Pared back, yes, but containing infinite variation and mutability.The images in this book allow you to see the nuances that are present once the growing season has receded. Colour you might have to find, but it is all the better for sitting quietly.

If you plant and plan for winter, the garden becomes a place that is constantly shifting, offering seasons within a season; you can observe the falling away and then the gentle gathering that replaces it, marking a shift in time.Although life in the garden is certainly slowed at this time of year, winter is also a season that evolves; it is never really in complete stasis.The new transparency and change of scale that the deciduous skeletons bring are arguably more beautiful than the opacity of a growing season.Aquiet drama. From my own perspective – and maybe this is part of maturing as a gardener and garden maker – I see this season as one to savour, and not simply to get through. Each and every week reveals something new, with space around it to take in the quiet of dormancy: the outline of a tree laid bare, the transparency of a hedge that in summer concealed the nests within. Leave a garden standing, and there is beauty in the wreckage. It becomes a place that offers fodder for birds and shelter for wildlife.

When you fully engage with winter, you come to realise that the pause at the mid-point of the season is, in truth, a very brief one. You begin to notice the flare of bare stems caught in the light of the sun when at its lowest, the rake of shadows that are suddenly shortening.There is optimism in the swelling buds of willows or catkins streaming on February hazel, and joy in the snowdrops breaking earth to begin their repeat cycle, with the time and opportunity to observe them closely.The immediacy of the imagery and the thoughtfulness of the essays in Winter Gardens capture this apparent downtime and allow us the opportunity to go that bit deeper into the garden – to see and feel what lies beneath the surface.

‘Frozen in time, these BEWITCHING plants and LANDSCAPES are there for the taking; all you have to do is open your HEART and MIND and keep your eyes wide open ’

CLARE FOSTER

WINTER GARDENS BY ANDREW MONTGOMERY AND CLARE FOSTER (HARDCOVER, 320 PAGES) IS AVAILABLE AT MONTGOMERYPRESS.CO.UK

THE POOL GARDEN, DESIGNED BY HEAD GARDENER BENJAMIN POPE, FEATURES UNDULATING HEDGES OF BOX, BEECH, YEW AND HAWTHORN AND FORMS PART OF THE GREATER WEST SUSSEX GARDEN IN ENGLAND DESIGNED BY ARNE MAYNARD

A ’30S MOON GATE AT THE ENTRANCE TO THE WALLED GARDEN IN WEST SUSSEX IN ENGLAND, BY DESIGNER ARNE MAYNARD

CLOCKWISE, FROM TOP LEFT QUIRKY YEW FIGURES CLIPPED INTO CONTRASTING SHAPES POPULATE THE TOPIARY GARDEN IN DESIGNER JINNY BLOM’S GARDEN. THE SURROUNDING HEDGE HAS BEEN SPECIALLY DESIGNED AND CONSTRUCTED FROM GREAT BLOCKS OF YEW; KNOBBLY PLEACHED LIMES HOLD HANDS ON THE LOWER TERRACE OF DESIGNER TOM STUART-SMITH’S GARDEN AT BROUGHTON GRANGE IN OXFORDSHIRE; THENFORD ARBORETUM AND GARDENS IN OXFORDSHIRE HAS A SNOWDROP COLLECTION THAT HAS EXPANDED OVER THE YEARS TO INCLUDE OVER 900 DIFFERENT VARIETIES, MOSTLY PLANTED UNDER TREES AND SHRUBS AND LINING WOODLAND PATHS; THE DARKENED LEAVES OF BAPTISIA LEUCANTHA IN PIET OUDOLF’S NETHERLANDS GARDEN IN HUMMELO