Happy New Year

January the 1st right in the middle of winter, has always seemed to me to be a very unnatural time to choose for the start of a New Year. Much more in tune with nature’s rhythms is the vernal equinox in mid March, which is where New Year was before the Roman Julian calendar in 46BC. Quite a while ago I know although according to Google we British only really embraced the 1st of January date in 1752, not very long ago at all.
I’m still not convinced though, I’d much rather be able to see more evidence of new growth and renewal along with more clement weather and longer hours of daylight, March would be much better.
But the 1st of January it is and although cold and dark the snowdrops are pushing their pointy noses out of the chilly soil and some of the earlier Hellebore flower heads are full and fat and just about to burst.

One of my favourite cold weather flowers, winter aconites, are ready to pop up and make me smile with their bright sunny cups of flowers sitting just above the soil on their frilly ruff of green bracts. They always catch me by surprise by sprouting up overnight like mushrooms and as they’re soon over I’ve planted some by the front door to make sure I don’t miss them. Luckily the front door faces north and I brush all the dead leaves which the wind swirls around it onto their patch of soil in the hope that I’m fooling them into thinking they’re living in woodland under the canopy of deciduous trees, their favourite habitat.
Like lots of early flowering plants, they like woodland edge conditions, they’ve evolved to make the most of the light available while the trees are still bare of leaves.

The hedge at the bottom of my garden makes a perfect, if very short, edge of woodland. Beneath the hazel the deep summer shade is ideal for ferns and now the leaves are decaying gently beneath and the blackbirds and thrushes are busy poking through them, the bare branches are lined with rows of lengthening catkins, soon to be full of yellow pollen.
The Mahonia relishes the shade there too. It’s flowered its socks off all November and December and been a magnet for blue tits, maybe there are tiny insects sheltering in the sprays of flowers or maybe blue tits just like bright yellow.
It’s one of those ‘tough as old boots’ plants as are its companions in my garden, Cornus ‘Flaviramea’ with yellow and orange stems and a birch with bright white bark. They are all happy in my woodland edge with a big clump of Hellebores and a few snowdrops at their feet.
I put them together partly to emphasis their seasonal appeal but mainly because they like the conditions and so are happy to grow together there.
Happy plants, happy birds, happy garden, happy me. Maybe New Year in January isn't so bad after all!

A gift for Christmas

It's that time of year again and if you're looking for a really special gift, a Garden Design Consultation is the perfect treat for anyone with a garden.
                                                        

'Two for the price of one'

It’s been absolutely fabulous for flowers, fruits, berries and autumn colour this year and my garden like so many others has been lush and glorious. As we come to the end of another year I have no complaints, even the slugs struggled to make an impact on  the abundant growth.

But that’s all over now, I’ve picked up the last of the perennial leaves left soft and mushy by the early frost and although the reliable grass stems are still holding their own, the tree branches are bare and the stark bones of my garden are revealed again.

As in every other winter for as long as I can remember, I find that I’ve forgotten what summer looked like. It’s the same with the landscape around me, I look up at the hills and just can’t imagine them green. In high summer it’s exactly the opposite, I can’t remember what winter looked like!

I don’t know if it’s just me or if we all feel that way as the seasons make such a dramatic impact on our surroundings.

Apart from the worry of impending older age and memory loss, this does have a positive side in that the view from my window is so different from six months ago that I feel as if I have two gardens for the price of one.

There are a few stalwart evergreens standing resolute in the face of seasonal change but apart from these if I compare summer and winter photographs the difference is remarkable.

Last year’s ice and snow were magical, especially at night when the garden lights made the frosty branches sparkle like tinsel dusted Christmas cards, but if this year we miss out on the arctic conditions then even dismal grey days will have their moments.

I used the sloes from the hedge to make slow gin so that will give me a warming reminder of better days and there is still some of my grape jelly from the vine outside the kitchen door. I have just a few quinces left, their faint but evocative scent all but gone now and a dwindling supply of little pumpkins and squashes which keep so well and look like a photograph from ‘Country Living’ sitting in the bowl of some old scales in the kitchen. There’s just a hint of loss with the last of the summer harvest though, so if it’s a bit of a lift I’m after, the birds do it for me.

The vibrant wings of the goldfinches, great tits and siskins flitting to and from the bird feeders, the sudden flash of the sparrow hawk as he darts through to catch a blue tit, the cheery robin almost always present and if we’re really lucky redwings and fieldfares might briefly join their blackbird and thrush relatives to strip the sloe and hawthorn branches.

Provide for the birds and even after the Christmas spirit has long evaporated you only have to look outside for a refreshing dose of winter cheer.

Into Autumn and beyond...

Autumn in the garden can be absolutely spectacular. The fiery brilliance of the turning leaves, the vivid gloss of the fruits and berries and the late summer perennials. Dahlias, asters, Japanese anemones and sedums keep the flower colour going to the bitter end and as the weather becomes inevitably greyer, murky and miserable the garden gives a last intense burst of colour, brilliant on those few perfect clear blue sky days.

There are some plants which far from performing a final fanfare are actually just coming into their own. Nerines are amazing plants, their shocking pink spidery flowers so unexpectedly exotic.

We don’t often think of choosing grasses for their flowers but they can add so much. Theirs is a quiet charm, not just in terms of colour but also for their texture, elegant shapes and their ability to sparkle in the chilling air and attract seed eating birds right through into the depths of winter.

The many named varieties of Panicum virgatum or switch grass, like ‘Hanse Herms’ and ‘Squaw’, their tiny flowers dangling singly from sprays, like little glass beads in the wet, and reddening leaves which arch gracefully at the tips.

Miscanthus are generally taller and stay reliably erect even in strong wind. Their flowers are upright in fairly dense fingers, often in darkening shades of bronze or plum. My favourite is Miscanthus ‘Morning Light’ with fine green and white striped leaves which as the weather turns colder fade to bleached blonde for the winter.

I have very mixed feeling about Cortaderia which we all know as pampas grass, probably because I have memories of so many seen planted in the middle of a lawn, incongruous and so out of place.

I’m embarrassed to admit now that I think it can actually look quite good in a mixed planting with other stars of the season, its flowers sprouting up and bursting into huge feather dusters. Bold and brassy it’s a definite statement plant for this time of year and then as early spring turns the sparrows’ thoughts to pairing up, they’re pulled to shreds to be recycled into lovely soft fluffy nesting material.

That’s the wonderful and optimistic thing about the garden, it’s always making us look forward. At the moment it’s through the less appealing days of winter and on towards spring and new growth. Autumn isn’t just the end of this year’s pleasure in the garden, it’s a  time of year to take stock of what’s worked well and what hasn’t, celebrate the successes and learn from the failures.

Now is the best time to plan for the garden’s future. It might be just ordering a few new spring bulbs or planning an altogether more wildlife friendly garden, whatever it is you’d like to make the most of in the garden, the opportunities for renewal are endless.

Planning for change

This summer in the garden may be drawing to a close but there’s still the autumn to look forward to with all its rich colour and harvest of fruit and berries.  I’m already thinking further forward though and I’ve been wandering round making notes of plants I think I’ll move during the winter and changes I’d like to make to my garden next year.

Planning for changes can mean something as simple as deciding to plant a few bulbs for a quick lift and burst of spring colour or as radical as a complete revamp, reorganisation and redesign. Whatever the result you want to achieve in the garden, as everywhere else, the more it’s thought through and planned with care the more successful that result will be.

With new clients I always start with how they use their garden, what about it gives them pleasure and suits their way of life and what does not. What style of garden would enhance the house and often just as important, the surrounding landscape too.

Are they the type of people who are more comfortable with order, neatness and  a manicured look, or do they feel more able to relax with a laid back informal approach, something a little bit rough around the edges. Whatever style they favour, all the individual elements need to work together, there should be a sense of harmony, a flow and natural movement  around the garden with  each element or feature in the most suitable place, so that they look and feel as if they belong together and to their surroundings.

This difference between clients, as well as garden sites, is what keeps my job varied and interesting. Gardens are very personal spaces and the plans I might draw up for any individual garden will depend almost as much on its current owner and their tastes and preferences, as they will on its particular position, aspect and soil type. One of the challenges for me as a designer is how much can the site be manipulated, hopefully within the budget, to give the owners what they want and give the garden its own sense of place, some essence of its natural identity. The thing I’m most often asked for and the most difficult to achieve, is that the garden mustn’t look designed, it should look as if it‘s always been there, that it belongs.

Until only a very few years ago, there’s been the view that gardens are places where we can introduce whatever plants we take a shine to and keep them in unsuitable soil and positions by dictating to nature, controlling it by the use of pesticides, herbicides and constant vigilance.

Thank goodness that’s all a thing of the past at last and we’ve learned that the natural world isn’t the enemy but the friend that with understanding how it works, holds the key to planning and achieving a beautiful garden.