It’s Winter Magic
By Su Rickett
As published in Gardens West Magazine, Nov/Dec. 2002
Reprinted with permission of publisher. A very nice garden magazine from British Columbia. Www.gardenswest.com; subscriptions, grow@gardenswest.com
Winter gardening is not really about doing much other than delighting in the beautiful things that happen in your garden during the quiet season. It’s a dawdle really; all you have to do is ‘Oooh’ and ‘Aaah’ at the amazing plants in bloom at this time of year.
It’s all about appreciating what you have, making a few notes on jobs to do later and maybe taking some photographs of your surroundings. How easy is that? You are even allowed to retreat back inside once in a while for a hot toddy.
This is your garden’s down time. While everything is asleep or hibernating, check out your garden’s bones, reflect on how it looks without the borders (or roses) bursting with bloom. Structural elements including trellises, pergolas, fences and pathways outline your garden’s shape and intrinsic beauty. Evergreens and deciduous plants with strong silhouettes show off their fine profiles. A slight dusting of snow or heavy frost adds a new dimension, illustrating shapes even more clearly.
On a cold day, Jasmine nudiflorum’s cheerful demeanor warms the heart. Considerable patience is required to train this plant up a wall as its tendency is to droop. Why not try it on a bank and let is spill downwards? Whichever way you choose to grow it, several months of glorious bloom will be your reward.
A great highlight of my winter garden is the hellebore. We see Helleborus niger buds unearthing themselves just after Christmas. A little later H. orientalis appears. If you have yet to invite a member of the hellebore family into your garden, I can vouch for their exemplary behavior and gracious manners. All they ask for is humousy soil
Once established, hellebores are quite drought tolerant. Even though they are usually delegated to the shade garden, they will take an amazing amount of sunshine. What more could you want than such perfectly behaved guests?
Another angle on winter gardening is the joy of perfumed air during the cooler months. Who is not in awe of the witch hazels? They are not bashful about throwing their scent around the garden. The aroma of one distinctive variety, Hamamelis x intermedia “Pallida’, can be enjoyed from 20ft away. It is one of those delightful plants that greets the nose before it meets the person. It also offers outstanding fall color.
Often overlooked are the skimmias. Sweetly scented, they make excellent Christmas wreath material. If there is a male plant nearby, female plants will be loaded with large crimson berries.
Don’t overlook the handsome evergreen Sarcococca hookerana ‘Humilis’. This excellent shade lover doesn’t mind miserable conditions, such as dry soil. Its tiny little flowers clustered along each stem pack a real punch with showers of sweet vanilla perfume in winter.
Oregon grape is another shrub that positively knocks your socks off with its perfume in January (more like February or March around here! This is a Vancouver BC writer and they’re warmer than us in winter.) Dripping yellow flowers perfectly set off by deep green holly-like leaves make this plant a handsome mid-ground companion to the rhododendrons. (Creeping mahonia is a common knee-high form.)
For something different try one of the shrubby honeysuckles such as Lonicera fragrantissima. This fairly ordinary looking shrub most of the year releases its powerfully potent perfume in winter, making it anything but dull. For a welcome whiff of perfume every time you pass by, plant this beauty near an entranceway.
In milder winters we on the West Coast often enjoy blooming roses in our gardens right up until Christmas. (oh gosh Vancouver is milder than Olympia!) They may be tiny and their fragrance a thin shadow of the original, but they’re lovely to look at. And think of the ‘brag value’ when you just happen to mention their presence to those folks in cooler climes.
Another great delight of the winter season is the many fabulous berried shrubs at their finest. Holly, cotoneaster, pernettya, and the native snowberry are all loaded down with fruit. And look at how many roses have incredible hips. ‘Ballerina’, ‘Complicata’, ‘Dainty Bess’, ‘Dapple Dawn’, ‘Fred Loads’, ‘Frau Dagmar Hastrup’ ‘Hansa’, ‘Henry Hudson’, ‘Kiftsgate’, ‘Penelope’, ‘Scabrosa’, ‘Wedding Day’ and Rosa moyesii are but a few you might want to check in to. (Don’t forget the local native Nootka rose! Great hip display.)
One of the most beautiful sights during the winter months is when the paperbark maple, Acer griseum, is backlit by late afternoon sun. Its paper-thin exfoliating bark looks absolutely radiant. Equally stunning is the lovely white stemmed birch Betula ‘Jaquemontii’, a splendid sight on a bright morning with its peeling white bark and beautiful silhouette.
A small tree with wonderful winter appeal is Corylus avellana ‘Contorta’, also known as Harry Lauder’s Walking Stick. This extraordinary tree has an incredible contorted habit and throughout winter usually drips with long catkins. Slow growing, it adapts well to a container. For an impressive display of catkins that appear to have been stretched, look for Garrya eliptica. Often trained against a wall, this slow-growing evergreen shrub likes some shade. (Another local native, the hazelnut, is starting its catkin display now too.)
In late winter, each day something new pushes through, crocus and other early bulbs show their little snouts. Buds plump up and plants begin to bloom. Peek under a group of fallen leaves to spy fresh green shoots as they slowly awaken. Winter is unlike any other season, its changes are subtle, its flowers demure—appreciate and reflect.
(Editor: Right now I’m really glad I installed a small Asian evergreen garden in the center of my formal rose garden. A large Kuan Yin figure is flanked by a dwarf semi-bonsai Japanese white pine, a yellow-variegated yucca and a yellow-variegated columnar juniper. This central group is flanked by low-growing evergreens: heathers, iberis, lavender and rock daphne. The ’Winter Chocolate’ heather is a striking red-brown color right now! Nothing will detract from the roses in their season but plenty to look at in winter when the roses aren’t doing anything. Plus this garden needs no watering or spraying or fertilizing, leaving the roses to get the lion’s share of my time and attention.)