Anyone in search of planting ideas for their garden in the colder months is spoilt for choice when it comes to sources of inspiration. Up and down Britain there are sterling examples of gardens planted for winter interest: Cambridge University Botanic Garden boasts one of the earliest; Wakehurst Place is home to one of the more recent; then there’s Bodnant, Dunham Massey, the Savill Garden – the list goes on. One thing they have in common though is that they’re all quite large, and gardeners could be forgiven for feeling they need a separate ‘winter area’ or hefty acreage to create anything worthwhile in their own plots. Not so, says David Jordan, senior gardener at Anglesey Abbey, who cares for its well-known Winter Garden and has a host of winter plants to recommend that will easily integrate into your existing garden.
One simple way to achieve some added interest in the colder months, is to focus on those plants with colourful or textural stems. Mix these winter plants into existing borders and, once their leaves have fallen in autumn, the tracery of their branches and colours of their bark will lend the overall garden a whole new wintry appeal.
Many of us are familiar with cornus (dogwoods), which are grown for their winter stems. They look so effective in great swathes in larger gardens, but even singly they have plenty of impact, particularly if you go for one of the really vivid cultivars. ‘Midwinter Fire’ is a popular choice and readily available in garden centres, but David says that ‘Anny’s Winter Orange’ has much stronger colour. “For green, Cornus sericea ‘Flaviramea’ is a good one, and C. alba ‘Kesselringii’ for black,” says David. “C. sericea ‘Cardinal’ is a pinky-orange shade that’s quite nice,” he adds. In
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