Winter is a Time For Planning Your Garden

Posted on Monday 7th December 2009, 11.59am in Articles / Special Features / Gardening

This article was written for Housecharm by Inge Berrie from Berrie Garden Design.

Inge is a professional Garden Designer based in Surrey who provides a range of garden design services including consultancy, full garden design, planting schemes and landscaping.

For more professional advice or to find out more about Berrie Garden Design, go to www.berriegardendesign.co.uk

Winter is an ideal time to reflect on what you want from your garden. Take some time out from the Christmas shopping and think about what you want from your garden in the next year. If this task seems too daunting, you may want to consider consulting a garden designer to help you to design your borders.

Winter is also a good time to plant some winter colour as the winter garden is often neglected. There are some lovely flowering herbaceous plants and shrubs which flower in winter. The Christmas rose (Helleborus niger) is an impressive, hardy perennial with attractive flowers in various shades of pink and white. These flowers will perform until early spring and then leave interesting evergreen foliage to fill gaps in the borders for the rest of the year. Helleborus x orientalis ‘Oldfield Strain’ and Helleborus x hybridus perform equally well as Helleborus niger.

Helleborus can be planted under Prunus subhirtella ‘Autumnalis’, which is a winter flowering cherry tree. The small, delicate tree produces pinkish white blossoms throughout winter and combines beautifully with the pinkish white flowers of the Helleborus. Viburnum x bodnantense ‘ Charles Lamont’ is a shrub which will add more pink to the garden throughout winter as it produces long flowering, pink fragrant flowers. Plant this combination close to the house and you will be cheered up by the soft colours all winter long.

Other winter flowering plants to consider are Jasminum nudiflorum, Mahonia x media , Hamamelis x intermedia and Primula vulgaris. These will all produce yellow flowers.

To do list for January:

Make a wish list and start comparing plant prices, so that you can get a good deal.
You may even want to invest in a greenhouse and propagate some of your plants from seed in the spring.
Clean your garden tools and sharpen the blades of secateurs and pruning sheers.
Look at garden related books to get some ideas of what you would like in the garden next year.
Consider consulting a garden designer to help you with plant design and hard landscape design.