WINTER PLANTING To make a garden visually interesting in the winter, first you need foliage, and evergreens will bring structure to your space. For example, a hedge to screen your boundaries, or a low box hedge to frame the edges of a mixed ornamental border. It means when the flowering perennials of summer die back, the bare ground is screened and neat. And in milder weather, box hedging will also put out fresh lime-green shoots. I’m also a great believer in using generous clumps of ornamental grasses throughout mixed borders; the bronze golden strands of Molinia and Carex look great, as do wispy dried grasses like Calamagrostis and Stipa. Winter is also a time to appreciate some of the details in plants that, at other times of the year, are cloaked in foliage. Favourites of mine include the peeling bark of the Paper Bark Maple (Acer Griseum) or cinnamon barked Luma. And of course, our own native birch trees, whose white stems look wonderful against a foil of clipped shrubs.
Download PDF file