Boring In Winter? Not In My Back Yard…

I don’t think that any garden in the winter deserves to be boring when it’s so easy to provide even the most basic interest with evergreen, variegated and winter flowering shrubs.

In my own garden I have two splendid bold Fatsia japonicas, with magnificent large exotic leaves and around this time of year it produces interesting stems with round pom-pom-like small cream flowers, which in turn will then produce small round black fruits.

If you’re going to plant a Fatsia in your garden, just just remember to leave plenty of room around it as it will in time become a large shrub and can grow up to ten feet, however you can cut it back if need be.

Another favourite shrub of mine for this time of the year, is the Mahonia x media, which again is an evergreen shrub with interesting holly-like foliage and this shrub will soon be coming into flower with long racemes of super fragrant bright yellow flowers. As with the Fatsia, remember to leave plenty of room as this too is a large shrub and can grow up to fifteen feet.

As this time of the year can be quite drab colour-wise, how about something pretty, pink and scented for the garden? In that case you could opt for something like the beautifully fragrant Viburnum x bodnantense ‘Dawn’. This shrub has pretty clusters of rich rose-red to white-pink flowers on bare stems, and this shows off the beauty of the flowers even more, as there is no foliage to obscure them. This shrub can grow to about ten feet.

Ornamental grasses are still in vogue in both domestic and commercial gardens, and many are now coming into there best; showing off their wonderful seed heads. The main star at the moment is the Pampas grass, Cortaderia selloana with its super feathery, silvery white plumes of up to ten feet. This grass is certainly for a larger garden where it can be used as a specimen plant or focal point.

There are lots of other smaller varieties of ornamentals grasses that can be grown in flower borders this time of year and once the perennials have died down, these grasses can then add interest and look structurally magnificent, especially when covered with some glistening icy frost.

It is said that there is a flowering clematis for each month of the year, well for this month the star of the show must be the Clematis Golden Tiara. This vigorous climber produces lovely open lantern-shaped flowers in bright golden yellow followed by fluffy seed heads that give interest into the early winter.

Like I said earlier, no garden deserves to look dreary and dull during this time of the year, so go on, see what plants are in season for around now and brighten up your garden for the dull winter months ahead.

Well, that’s about it for this week.

Stay warm and take care during these frosty mornings.

Don’t forget to visit my main website at
www.gardendesigner.co.uk

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