‘Designing and Creating a Winter Garden’ by Sally Gregson shows how to get the most out of what can be a tricky season for gardeners.
I’ve long thought that you can really judge a garden if you see it in winter. This stripped back season reveals design faults that often are hidden by summer blooms and lays bare the structure that underpins planting.
It’s a concept that Sally Gregson outlines in Designing and Creating a Winter Garden arguing that great designers, including Christopher Lloyd and Vita Sackville-West, designed for winter, creating a framework for the flowers and foliage of other seasons.
“If the basic shape and composition of the garden pleases the eye when there is nothing to distract, then everything else falls into place in its season,” Sally tells us.
(I was sent a copy in return for a fair review.)
Her latest book aims to show how to achieve that strong design as well as the critical framework of trees, shrubs and perennials that look good in winter and then form an important backdrop to the rest of the year.
She begins with the basics – how to assess a plot, whether it be a mature garden or the ‘blank canvas’ of a new garden. Things to consider include screening off neighbours or ugly eyesores such as telegraph poles, the direction of the prevailing wind, and whether there are any frost pockets.
There’s information on hedges, both as boundaries and internal garden divisions, suggestions for using design to tempt people to explore further, and where to site winter features – close to the house or a frequently used path is ideal.
Despite its title, Designing and Creating a Winter Garden is also about maintaining it with instructions on composting, making a lawn, and what gardening jobs should be done over winter.
Colour is an important element of the winter garden and that can be introduced both through hard landscaping – painting benches and fences is one idea – and with plants. We are told to consider not just winter flowers, but berries, leaf and stem or trunk colour, and there are suggestions for combinations: Acer griseum teamed with red or white-flowered hellebores; Acer davidii with primroses.
Photographs of good winter gardens, including John Massey’s beautiful garden at Ashwood Nurseries, help to give further inspiration. (You can read about my visit to John’s Garden here.)
What I found most interesting were the sections dealing with plants that would be good in a winter garden – hedges, evergreens, climbers, winter flowering, scented and those with coloured bark.
While I knew quite a lot of them, there were a few I hadn’t considered. Each plant has a description and details of growing conditions, its eventual size, potential uses and, most important, how hardy it is.
My only minor criticism is there is some repetition – we’re told about the problems with box in several places and there is even a repeated photograph.
That said, this is a good introduction to making the most out of an often overlooked season.
Designing and Creating a Winter Garden by Sally Gregson is published by The Crowood Press with an RRP of £20. You can buy it here for £15.66. (If you buy via this link, I receive a small commission. The price you pay is not affected.)
Feature photo: A loose boundary border at John’s Garden, Ashwood Nurseries.
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