When walking around the woodland garden at The Dingle Garden and Nursery near Welshpool recently we were amazed at the tiny buds awaiting the spring. I want to share these simple photos with you which I hope you enjoy.
Tag: winter garden
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The Dingle Garden in Welshpool – March
We returned to the Dingle Garden and Nurseries for the third time this year, hoping for signs of spring but having experienced such bad weather recently we were expecting few changes at all. We always enjoy a wander around the nursery anyway so that would make up for any disappointments. In particular we enjoy their collections of trees and shrubs.
We soon spotted shrubs we had looked at in detail on our last visit when buds were fattening but not displaying signs of opening. On this our March visit things had not developed at all. However some shrubs further down the slope towards the lake where there was more shelter were in fact in the first stages of bursting into leaf.
The light on this visit allowed the colour and texture of the bark on trees show up far better than in February.
,Deciduous Euonymus such as our native Euonymus europaeus, display their heavily textured bark when they are bare of foliage, and Euonymus alatus is a particular star with its winged stems.
A few shrubs had open flowers and looked very special, like gems, among so much deep green of the many evergreens growing on the slopes. Hellebores and flowering bulbs added splashes of colour amongst the undergrowth. The tiny insignificant flowers of Euphorbias sat snuggled into the bright green bracts.
The common native Hazel, Corylus avellena, is far from ordinary. It is an exceptional plant as it gives so much to our gardens. If you plant a contorted variety then you get the strangest of winter skeletons, but with others you get sturdy upright growth and this growth provides us with our bean poles for the allotment. In the first months of each year they delight us with their catkins which look like little lime-green lambs’ tales. These are the male flowers producing mists of pollen on breezy warm days but if you look very closely you may be lucky enough to find a female flower which is a minute deep red flower like a miniature sea anemone.
Buds were just beginning to show the early signs of fattening up when we made our visit in February so we were so pleased to find some fresh brightly coloured leaves beginning to burst forth from them this month.
Fresh growth had appeared from clumps of perennials, with Hemerocallis way ahead of others with the brightest and most advanced growth of all.
Evergreen shrubs have produced new foliage which looks so young with glossy surfaces and extra bright colours.
As we wandered the pathways enjoying the freshness of new growth and bursting buds, we were distracted by surprises and unexpected features, such as this old tumbled-down summer house and a deep fissure in the path where rushing floodwater had flowed beneath the path removing materials.
The stream which we enjoyed watching last month tumbling beneath the wooden footbridge had turned into an angry torrent of water, so noisy that we could hear it from far off. Wherever we were inside the woodland garden we could hear running water rushing down slopes, along tiny streams and over pathways.
Let us hope that by the time of our next visit the garden will be much dryer and the water passing down the site will be back within its banks.
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A Favourite Winter Garden – Dunham Massey
This will be our third visit to the relatively new winter garden at Dunham Massey, a National Trust property in Cheshire, our neighbouring county to the north of our home county, Shropshire. The leaflets concerning the garden refer to it as a “Curiosity Garden”, while inside is written, “Forget hibernating until spring, Dunham Massey’s Winter Garden is wide awake with colour.”
The leaflet then invites us to “Take a refreshing walk in the Winter Garden along meandering paths with shocking red cornus and brilliant white birch trees trees glittering in the winter sun. Discover bright winter berries, late flowering scented shrubs and thousands of snowdrops and iris in the new year.”
We approached the winter garden by meandering along gravel paths across a shallow valley, when upon passing through the first red-bricked outbuildings we discovered some of the best pleaching we had ever seen. It stops us in our tracks on every visit.
The pleached limes look a few decades old and possess the ubiquitous knobbles from where the new wands of growth spurt in the spring after their annual pollarding.
Shrubs come into their own in the winter season with their coloured stems, their scent and beautiful hanging flower clusters.
Early flowering bulbs add much of the colour in the garden in February. Sunlight catches them and highlights their bright colours.
All winter gardens open to the public make strong features of trees with coloured, textured bark, Betulas, Acers and Prunus.
Shrubs with coloured stems provide effective partner planting for these trees, especially Cornus and Salix varieties. The gardeners at Dunham Massey are adept at transparency pruning, effectively lifting the akirts of shrubs and small trees to expose their trunks and lower branches.
The one plantingcategory that sorts out the best winter gardens from the average is the good creative use of ground cover. It is all too easy to use bark mulch but there are good interesting plants that can cover the ground and add new dimensions to planting schemes. Dunham Massey is on the way to sorting this well, using Carex, Bergenia, Ophiopogon, ferns and Pachysandra.
So there we have it, a thoroughly inspiring visit to one of our favourite winter gardens.
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A canal-side garden in winter – John’s Garden Part 1
We have visited “John’s Garden” before in the height of summer and really enjoyed it, so much so that we were determined to re-visit at different times of the year. We imagined it would be an effective all-year garden. Mid-February and John opened his garden on a cold and wet winters day, so we went along with garden-loving friends Pete and Sherlie.
We started with a hot mug of coffee in the nursery coffee shop to warm us up, so with added warmth and lots of excitement and anticipation we wandered down the drive from Ashwood Nurseries to his own 3 acre-garden.
The garden has the advantage of boasting a canal, the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal, running along its length – not many gardeners could say that about their patch!
An unusual hedge greeted us as we entered the garden, a long cloud pruned hedge, beautifully sculpted. A slate pathway at its end took us into a colourful area full of winter interest. Hamamelis and small deciduous trees were the stars, supported ably by ferns, bergenias, snowdrops and a variety of small-leaved shrubs trained as spheres.
We left this little garden behind and crossed an open lawned area dotted with topiary specimens and trees with interesting bark, coloured, textured or peeling. We joined up with the gardens bordering the canal, the sort of background gardeners can only dream of.
After a close up look at these trees and touching their bark, we followed the canal-side borders into the main gardens. Here grasses mingled with dogwoods and Willows, both pollarded and coppiced to enhanced their stem colours. Conifers of all sorts of shapes, colours and sizes began to appear here becoming strong features of this garden during the winter months. John is a master at transparency pruning which brings out the trees attributes. Interestingly he prunes both deciduous trees and shrubs and coniferous specimens too, which makes them look so much more interesting and they add so much to borders.
John is also a master of topiarising shrubs to emphasise their beauty and give structural elements throughout the garden. All sorts of conifers and evergreen shrubs have been given this treatment.
In part two of my post all about our winter visit to John’s Garden, we will move along the canal borders before returning along the opposite side of the patch, while along the way discovering a pool, sculpture and a terrace and lots more exciting plants and plant pairings.
Back to Welshpool to explore The Dingle Gardens for February, we expected little change since our January visit as the weather had remained very similar.
We were greeted by a stunning wooden owl sculpture! Soon we noticed there were lots of signs of new growth, buds forming on trees and shrubs and a few beginning to burst into leaf.
Rhodendrons and Azaleas have strong looking buds both leaves and flowers showing well.
Some of the many small evergreen shrubs are showing off new fresh growth with Hebes sporting new coloured foliage along with some conifers who show off new coloured needles.
We spotted one Buddleja which was holding onto seed heads from last autumn alongside fairly advanced fresh silver foliage. We wondered what would happen to this growth if a frost suddenly covered it.
A few plants had splashes of green showing where leaf buds were beginning to burst, especially Hydrangeas
We didn’t expect to come across many flowers but there were a few to delight the eye and sometimes the nose too.
The bracts and tiny flowers of Euphorbias were brightening up showing glaucous and lime green colours.
So February proved to be more interesting than we had predicted. We hope to see the first signs of spring on our next visit in March.
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My Garden Journal 2018 – February
Part two of my 2018 Garden Journal sees us still freezing cold and struggling to get time in the garden.
I opened my February entries by noting, “February is the month when we feel that the quality of the light improves and makes us feel better and there are definite signs of the days lengthening. Early bulbs begin flowering and others are showing strong leaf growth.”
I next sought out another quote from Dan Pearson’s book, “Natural Selection” and was pleased to find this one, “Making room for the winter garden is every bit as important as managing a garden that draws your attention in the dark months.”
Turning over to the next double page spread I write about newly acquired plants.
“It is always an enjoyable time planting newly acquired plants but it is an extra-special experience doing so in February. We were delighted to find good healthy specimens of two fastigiate plants, a Taxus baccata “Fastigiata Robusta” and an Ilex crenata “Fastigiata”. The only two fastigiate plants we have already established at Avocet are a Berberis and an Oak, Berberis thunbergia fastigiata atropurpurea “Helmond Pillar” , (a tall thin shrub with a long thin name!” and Quercus palustris “Green Pillar” which despite its name is grown for its deep red autumn colour.”
“We also recently planted a Viburnum with a very different growth habit to our fastigiate purchases. It is a low growing shrub with a very open, airy growth and sweetly scented flowers in April. It is also described as “almost evergreen”, so we will wait and see exactly how ours behaves. We already have a good collection of Viburnums around our Avocet patch.”
Some of my watercolour sketches of Hellebores and details of their petals feature on the next page.
“Hellebores peak in February adding a richness with the deep reds and purples as well as cheeriness with their yellow flowers.”
“I love turning up each flower to reveal its beauty, its colours and markings of spots and streaks.”
On the opposite page I looked at some of our grasses with winter interest and share some photos of them.
“In late February we begin to cut down “deciduous” grasses, choosing the right time to avoid cutting through this year’s new growth. Evergreen grasses especially varieties of Carex come into their own especially when partnered with evergreen foliage plants such as ferns, bergenias and arums.”
Moving on to the final double page spread for February, I considered coloured stemmed Dogwoods and a look at roses as they give their final points of interest before they are pruned and begin to grow anew for this year.
“The coloured stems of Dogwoods add so much colour to the winter borders. We use them to catch the rays of the low sun which helps them to glow and liven up our garden.”
I finished off my February journal entries by featuring roses and a very special plant, special because it is a dogwood that occurred in our garden as a chance seedling of Midwinter Fire crossed with one of our other Cornus plants. We have grown it on and now take lots of cuttings hoping to bulk it up. We hope to be able then to sell them at our open days. Very exciting!
I wrote, “Our Cornus Midwinter Fire throws up new plants from runners and occasionally a few from seed. The runners are identical to the parent plant but the seedlings can vary a lot. We pot the seedlings on and then plant them out on our allotment plot to allow us to identify “star plants”. We have one which is far redder than its parents and has better autumn colour. We are propagating these (see below). We have named it Cornus “Arabella’s Crimson” after our granddaughter.”
My final page is about roses and yellow flowers of the February garden. The yellow flowers are Jasminum nudiflorum, Cornus mas and a pale yellow rose bud. I wrote “Sparkling spots of yellow flowers brighten up the February weather, fighting against this month’s greys.”
“Late February is the time when we begin pruning our bush roses in readiness for the new growing season. We always find wrinkled rose hips and even the odd flower bud.
“Next month is one we really look forward to. Already by mid-February light values have improved, but soon Spring may begin to creep in!”
Welcome to another year of my garden journal. This first post is all about a very cold January, but we decided to defy the weather and garden anyway. So let’s see what is going on at Avocet and share with you our jobs successfully achieved.
On my first double page spread I share the new materials I will be using this year and mention that my journal this year will be created in a larger, landscape format a Daler-Rowney art book.
I will keep my notes in a beautiful blue notebook, a gift from a friend and will write my monthly musings with another fine gift, this time from daughter, Jo and son-in-law, Rob, an Art Pen by Rotring. My notes will be written using a bamboo mechanical pencil and pen a gift from Jude’ sister, Pauline and brother-in-law Steve.
During 2018 I aim to try out different art media and techniques to help illustrate my written words, tubed watercolours, soft pastels and acrylics. I may also use two of these media together, and perhaps try some collage pieces. Over the page I shall get this 2018 journal started by looking at our many cultivars of Ivies.
“We always consider Ivy to be a stalwart of the Winter Garden, they cheer us up with their silver and gold variegations. They keep our wildlife happy too providing shelter, berries and their late flowers which appear when few plants are providing pollen.”
On the right hand page I painted foliage of some of the varieties we grow around our garden, using tubed watercolours.
Over the page I take a look at some of our wildlife and the habitats and shelters we provide for them. I wrote, “We hope that the different shelters we provide for our garden wildlife helps them through the Winter months. We look at each shelter hoping all is well but really we can’t tell at all.”
“Enjoying winter chores in January improves our mood, as it feels so good to be outside in touch with Mother Nature in her stripped-down bare glory. Enjoyment is enhanced by the sound, sight and movement of birds feeding on both the food we grow for them, as well as sunflower hearts and “no-mess” bird seed mix we put out in feeders. Birds arrive in flocks, flocks that give some security from predators, that give a chance to share intelligence concerning availability of food and to give extra heat and insulation during bleak winter weather.”
Turning over the page to the next double-page spread, on the left I looked at some fruits we grow and opposite a look at some scented plants.
“Rose hips and Ivy berries are two very different fruits of our Winter garden, the fruit of the rose is flagon shaped changing from green through to red whereas the Ivy transforms from green to black and brown. The rose hips are created from the death of blousy, double or single colourful flowers, the Ivy berries transform from the tiny, insignificant dull yellow flowers.”
“Scent becomes a powerful feature of the winter garden season in our garden. Small shrubs can fill the garden with their aroma and early bulbs add gentle scent at ground level. There are few pollinators around at this time of year so the flowers need strong scent to attract them.
The sweetest scent of all belongs to Daphne bhuloa “Jacqueline Postill”, but Sarcococca gives a good performance too. The Witch Hazels are far gentler and need you to put your nose close to appreciate their contribution.”
Hamamelis is the star of my next page and in particular Hamamelia intermedis “Jelena”
“Hamamelis, a winter flowering shrub we would never be without, with its brightly coloured and scented flowers in yellows, oranges and reds. Each flower is a burst of delicate ribbons bursting from a purple centre. We grow the deep orange flowered “Jelena” and the deep red flowered “Diane”, with Jelena flowering early at the beginning of January and Diane coming into bloom weeks later.”
” There are still plenty of jobs to enjoy in the garden here in January. Nothing is more satisfying than wrapping up warm and defying the weather, going outside with a mug of warming coffee in gloved hands. It makes us true gardeners! We are helped by a Robin who accompanies us enjoying any grubs we unearth and his watery winter song is constantly in the background.
We prune climbing and rambling roses this month and tidy up Acers and Betulas. Perennials are left until early March but now we remove any that collapse or go slimy. As we do this we mulch the borders with a few inches of compost to slowly feed the soil and improve its texture. Wood ash from our wood-burning stove is scattered around all of our trees and shrubs. Group 3 clematis are pruned down to a foot just above strong, healthy buds which are already showing green colouring. The rich aromas from the winter-flowering shrubs lift our spirits and put smiles on our faces.”
I will be back soon reporting on my February ramblings from our garden.
Anglesey Abbey gardens are best known for their brilliant Winter Gardens, which were the first well-known gardens designed to be at their best and visited at this season. But there is far more to these premises than this seasonal garden, such as beautiful gentle herbaceous borders and lots of plants that attract wildlife.
The famous Winter Garden is still worth wandering through though!
We set off beyond the Winter Garden to see what we could discover of interest in the rest of the garden. We felt sure we were in for a few surprises! Turning a corner and rounding a hedge of glossy leaved Laurel we found a mystery. A piece of sculpture? A clock? We explored it for a while before we realised its true identity.
The oak structures are designed to support visitors as they lean back to enjoy the wide Fenland skyscapes.
To return to the entrance we followed a tow path alongside a very overgrown canal, its surface carpeted with our native yellow waterlily.
Looking upwards we noticed an open structured sculptural piece hanging from a bough of a mature tree. It presented a strong contrast to the stone griffin close by.
In the end though what makes a good garden great is the quality of its plants and how they are put together. The photos below prove just how great the gardens at Anglesey Abbey truly are whatever time of year you visit.
I decided to post my final Garden Journal 2017 post for my Christmas post this year. I hope you enjoy it. Have a great Christmas time!
Here is the final episode of my 2017 Garden Journal, my entries for December. I have already been to my art suppliers and purchased books to become my 2018 Garden Journal. As usual I have changed the size and gone for a larger landscape bound drawing book. But for now let me share my December pages.
I began by looking at the bird-life feeding in our garden in December and in particular the characterful Tawny Owl. I did a painting of these wonderful owls using fine fibretip pens and Japanese watercolour pens.
I wrote, “Birdlife in our garden in December is generally quiet. Squeaks of Dunnocks sneak out from the shrubbery and Robins share their watery liquid winter song. Winter migrant Thrushes soon fill the garden with chatter.
Most noisy of all are our Tawny Owls who call loudly when the light fails and darkness overpowers the garden. We open the patio doors to listen more intently and drink in the atmosphere these owl calls create.”
Turn over the page and we find a double page spread looking at garden editing and seedheads and I include a great quote from one of my favourite garden designers, Dan Pearson.
“December for us is a key month in our garden editing period. It is when we move plants, take plants out that are past their best and completely re-design and re-plant some areas. I was so pleased to read in his book, “Natural Selection”, that Dan Pearson thinks the same.”
“Editing the garden is a gradual process of elimination, and I like to let nature take its course and for foliage to find its way back into the ground in its own time….. I savour many perennials for their winter seedheads, form and structure, and this is what I edit back to so that there is plenty for the winter sunshine for the winter sunshine to fall upon.
Removing the clutter lets you see the things in a new light, but you need to retrain your eye in winter to see things in a more economical way. It is good to understand the structure of a garden and to aim for it to be as handsome as it can be.”
“Seed heads of perennials take centre stage in our garden this month. When snow arrives our seed heads completely change their character. They appear strong enough to withstand snow’s weight.
Snow in December has become a rare occurrence in recent years as our climate changes. In fact we have not seen any December snow since 2010 and 2011. This year saw this all change. A foot of snow fell in a two day period and the garden looked weighed down, slumped and bent low”.
“We love to see how the snow changes the characters of our pieces of sculpture by strengthening their shapes and sometimes creating silhouettes”.
Turning over the page we meet lots of colour, winter bedding plants and our plant of the month.
I wrote “We like to use winter bedding plants in pots to add extra colourful, bright patches to our winter borders. Violas and Cyclamen are two of our favourites often linked with the gentle colour and textures of grasses.”
“Our plant of the month for December is Hesperantha which flower strongly at this time of year, glowing bright pinks and reds.”
My final page in my Garden Journal 2017 is all about the surprises that the garden treats us to in December, bright colours that lift the heart. You will notice that I have included more pictures in the post than were originally in the journal, but I simply ran out of space in my book. I hope you enjoy the extras!
“Red surprises in the winter garden can warm the heart and souls of the garden and the gardener alike. Joined by splashes of oranges these colours warm us up nicely.”
The reds and oranges are provided by coloured stems of shrubs, odd blooms on roses, the berries of Iris foetissima and the late colours in Acer leaves. So much colour to end the year.
It is good to finish my year of reports on such a positive colourful note. My Garden Journal will return next year!
Mid-December saw the sudden arrival of snow a rare occurrence in recent years. The last time we can remember having any appreciable snow fall in December was back in 2010 and 2011. Sadly I am still recovering from my surgery so really haven’t been able to get out there and enjoy the white stuff. However it did give me the chance to send Jude the Undergardener out with my trusty Nikon, so this post will feature all her photographs.
They are pretty good for someone who says she can’t use a camera! Methinks the lady objects too much! Jude the Undergardener has such a good eye for a picture!
Seedheads of perennials gain caps of snow and ice, and light finds places to make sparkle.
Twiggy skeletons of shrubs that had lost their leaves managed to catch balls of snow in their branches.
Evergreen trees and shrubs gather much more snow and ice around them like thick duvets.
Sculptures scattered around the garden change as they absorb the snow.
Surprise flowers add tiny patches of colour among the whiteness, roses throwing up surprises through to the end of the year. Similarly the colours of fruits and berries pop up from the snow like “jack-in-the-box”, but this will only last until our winter thrushes consume them.
Structures that blend into the background for the rest of the year come to the fore when winter arrives but even more so when snow covers the garden in white. These structures include trained fruit trees, trellises, evergreen climbers and pollarded trees.
Looking out of the garden into our borrowed landscape showed that the countryside too had put on a new coat. Looking into the garden there are very special moments in time to catch. This leaf may at any time fall to the ground in a gentle breeze.
greenbenchramblings 