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Winter
Wonderland Gardens that look good in
winter will look great the rest of the year. Helen McKerral
describes how to let winter help you fine-tune your garden
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Some gardeners dislike temperate winters and, if I lived in the
Northern Hemisphere, I suppose all that ice and snow would
(pardon the pun) dampen my enthusiasm somewhat. I’m certainly
less likely to dig in my garden during the foggy, chill winters
of the Adelaide Hills but, as for gardeners throughout temperate
Australia, I have plenty of things to do. And with a
well-established garden, most important for me in recent years
has been using the season to fine-tune my garden’s structure.
With a mix of deciduous and evergreen trees, winter bares the
bones and structure of my garden as effectively as wiping makeup
from a model’s face. Spring’s flush of flowers, summer’s bright
sunshine and autumn’s more subdued tones can all conspire to
conceal minor – even major – flaws in the underlying bones of a
garden. Leaves conceal internal or crossing branches in a tree
while a blaze of flowers distracts attention from what might be
a cluttered, overplanted garden. Overgrown shrubs encroaching
into open space can create a claustrophobic ambience. For
gardeners like me, who are not professional designers, winter
makes it easier for us to identify such aesthetic flaws.
A Stroll through your Winter Garden
When all the leaves have fallen from your deciduous trees, and
before spring (usually late winter) bulbs have popped out of the
ground, take a notepad and pencil and take a stroll through your
garden. Your aim is to identify areas that look cluttered and
messy or, conversely, bare and boring. As well as an overview of
each area, also examine each tree and shrub, and judge its
relationship to neighbouring plants. Are they too intergrown to
retain their own identities? Do you wish them to blend, or not?
Do you have sufficient open space in your garden, or is it
overgrown with a closed-in feel? Do you have sufficiently varied
levels in your garden, a blend of over-, mid and ground-storey
plants? Is there a rich and complementary blend of textures,
colours, materials?
Improving Structure
Identify cluttered areas and tackle them with secateurs and
pruning saw. You may need to remove entire shrubs if they’re
intergrown with others, but it’s also possible to prune in the
Japanese style, where two neighbouring plants are shaped to
complement each other. Prune one to be lower-growing, while
removing material near the ground from the other, leaving growth
at height.
Shape individual plants by pruning internal or crossing branches
and opening up the canopy, and remove twiggy growth along trunks
and primary branches to highlight their form and bark.
The easiest way to do this on larger specimens is to stand back
from the tree or shrub and choose the branches you want removed,
while a second person on a ladder either prunes or ties ribbons
to identify the branches you point out. You’re aiming to make
each deciduous plant beautiful: properly pruned, the form of
branches and trunk of deciduous trees should be attractive in
their own right, even without foliage.
Cut back shrubs that are overgrowing paths and trim hedges. Once
you’ve removed the excess clutter and opened up the garden, you
can reassess the structure again to see what other improvements
can be made.
You may wish to add a focal point in the form of a garden
ornament, seat, sculpture, or birdbath, or a feature tree or
shrub. If your garden seems “all one level”, you may wish to do
some additional pruning or planting to deliberately introduce a
variety of heights.
Improving Colour.
Flowers: It’s easy to create a colourful spring garden, but
temperate winters are more challenging. If your garden looks
great in spring but drab now, you can add colour specifically
for this time of year. One of the simplest methods is to take a
weekly walk or drive through your neighborhood, noting what’s in
flower (you may need to snip a small sprig overhanging the
fence, and take it to your local nursery if you’re unsure of the
identification). Selecting plants this way is effective because
local climatic conditions will likely match your garden more
closely than a general gardening book can advise, and you can be
confident that a thriving specimen growing a block away is
reasonably likely to do well in your garden, too. A weekly drive
or walk, throughout winter, allows you to plan a succession of
colour.
Foliage: A garden with predominantly deciduous trees and shrubs,
with herbaceous perennials and bulbs, will disappear in winter.
Fine for our Northern Hemisphere cousins, where winter snow and
ice limit even the most enthusiastic and skilled of gardeners –
we have no such excuse here!
So unless you’re specifically aiming for a complete and total
seasonal blank slate, consider replacing some deciduous plants
with evergreen ones. Choose for a variety of foliage colour –
conifers, variegated, golden, grey and red foliage will provide
colour all year round – longer than can any flower!
Improving textural variety
Add plants with a variety of textures – spiky or softly
fountaining, weeping or upright, dense or open, shiny or dull –
to add another dimension to the garden. The seed heads of
grasses, sedges and lilies can last for months and are often as
beautiful as any flower. Bark and stems are beautiful too –
silver birches, willows,
Contrasting textures can also be added by introducing various
surfacing materials and edging. I personally like defined edges
that delineate paths, garden beds and lawns because they
highlight my garden’s structure. Sometimes, simply sweeping
paths, raking and edging lawns, and trimming border plants is
enough to bring out your garden’s best features.
A little planning and fine-tuning in temperate climate gardens
at this time of year will reap rewards greatly outweighing the
effort involved: if you can make your garden look good in
winter, you can be confident it will look even better in spring
and summer! Happy restructuring!
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