As perennials start to die back and the garden retreats into its winter slumber, its true structure is revealed. Layout and hard landscaping are its bones. Just as critical is the shape of the plants that remain: in leaf or laid bare, left to grow naturally or clipped and shaped. Suddenly it becomes clear how form is everything.
In other seasons, plants are often the support act to an abundance of flowers and foliage, the structure that provides contrast and a much-needed framework for more ephemeral blooms. Planning these elements — the bigger picture — is arguably harder than filling a border with flowers. It requires a spatial awareness to imagine many shapes and textures in all seasons, and to predict how layers of plants work together in an ever-changing tapestry.
It’s not surprising, then, that many garden designers choose plants over flowers for structure. The latter are fleeting but good form can have a presence year-round. Put a photograph of a border into black and white and you get a graphic picture of how well this works, as shapes and layers are shown in tonal contrast.
Arne Maynard’s garden in Monmouthshire, where yew and beech topiary come into their own in winter © Britt Willoughby Dyer
Arne Maynard is a master of winter form. In his own garden at Allt y bela in Monmouthshire, the myriad topiaries that wrap around the medieval house almost disappear in the abundance of summer, merging into the lush green meadows that sweep up around the house. But in winter, the cones, domes and spirals of yew and beech (the latter now in its rusty winter coat as it clings on to its dead leaves) emerge as key players. They are stoic sentinels that bring a ghoulish presence. The garden seems to shrink and each clipped shape becomes all the more intense.
There’s an unparalleled magic in winter — the ethereal beauty of a hoar frost on a bone-chilling clear morning is as beautiful as any June dawn
But there’s some work to do to maximise this wintry moment. Preparation is meticulous. At the Maynard-designed South Wood Farm, the exquisite jewel box of a garden near Honiton in Devon, head gardener Lewis O’Brien begins clipping the numerous yew, beech and hornbeam topiaries as soon as growth slows in mid to late August and hopes, sometimes optimistically, that this marathon job will be done before autumn really sets in. If you have some patience, these topiary forms can be nurtured from bare-root whips, which cost a pound or two at the most, and can be planted from now until early April.
At Balmoral Cottage — Charlotte and Donald Molesworth’s otherworldly topiary garden in Benenden, Kent, the regime is similarly fastidious. The shape of their box and yew topiaries are sharpened up through autumn to provide maximum contrast in winter (their rule: topiary is clipped when there is an R in the month).
South Wood Farm is open several times a year as part of the National Gardens Scheme @southwoodgarden
The routines in my garden on the Suffolk coast are rather less precise, and jobs are done when there’s time to do them. The taller hedges — beech and hornbeam — will be clipped back from their summer growth (which can be a couple of feet long) — bringing an instant sense of neatness and order. On the garden edges where the cultivated areas meet pasture, the beech hedges are cloud-pruned, softening their outlines and merging them more successfully into the undulating layers of the surrounding countryside.
Miss Willmott’s Ghost is arguably the best of any biennial/perennial in frost, when its spiky, spiny thistles look like jewels
Some shrubs can be dramatically improved by clever clipping. I’ve recently lifted the skirt of a large Pittosporum tenufolium, transforming it from a 10ft-tall green blob into a multi-stem topiary, a far more effective use of the plant which now also has space underneath for some shade-loving plants or bulbs. Multi-stem trees and shrubs, with their pleasing silhouettes, look particularly good in winter, especially when the bark is of interest too — the shiny reddish-brown trunks of Tibetan cherry (Prunus serrula), Paperbark maple (Acer griseum), or the ghostly white stems of Himalayan birch are some of the best. To maximise their forms, trim off any lower side shoots, and for birch, peel back older peeling layers on the trunk to reveal the pristine surface beneath. (The downside of this is the scurrying creatures who had already bedded down for winter will now have to make other last-minute plans.)
Smaller evergreens including box balls and lower hedges have already been sharpened up in an early autumn tidy-up, along with several evergreen hebes including Mrs Winder, which I grow more for its dark purple foliage than for flowers.
Fennel, verbena and stipa tenuissima add structure in the gravel garden © Clare Coulson
Of course, there’s a danger of going too far, which is easily done when you have some lightweight power tools that can prune a large specimen in minutes. I am currently toying with the idea of pleaching an avenue of Chanticleer pears, which is underplanted with a spring border and copper beech hedges, or clipping them into box top standards. The jury is still out as they also have such an elegant natural shape.
Many plants are best left alone, especially if they have interesting habits. Cotoneaster horizontalis has an unparalleled beauty in winter when its spiny, drooping branches are covered in red berries and frost. Ditto the corkscrew hazel with its brilliantly contorted growth habit and textural catkins.
As the days shorten the low and precious sunlight also changes, so that the tracery of trees, hedges, shrubs and other shapes cast dramatic shadows. It’s always worth considering where light falls at key moments in the garden — and winter is no exception. This is especially true of ornamental grasses which really benefit from being softly backlit. Plenty of grasses hold their shape beautifully: Stipa gigantea, Calamagrostis Karl Foerster, and many panicums and pennisetums all add considerable form and texture to the views in winter. But few can match the elegant feathered plumes of Miscanthus sinensis, which are utterly mesmerising in a frost. I have Ferner Osten and the taller and chunkier Malepartus; both do well in my dry and sandy garden.
Eryngium giganteum ‘Miss Willmott’s Ghost’ © Clare Coulson
The bark of Cherry and Silver birch brighten the winter garden © GAP Photos/Jonathan Buckley
Choosing perennials for their form often means considering their leaves and seed heads in the colder months too. Hairy or waxy leaves look particularly good in winter, including the foliage of Alchemilla mollis, bergenias, glaucous euphorbias, cardoons, or the shield-shaped leaves of Eryngium giganteum Miss Willmott’s Ghost. The latter is arguably the best of any biennial/perennial in frost, when its spiky, spiny thistles look like Tudor jewels. Plants that “die well” are the ones that really earn their place in the year-round garden — the stems of phlomis, echinacea, sedums and Baptisia australis (which has incredible black seed pods) should only be cut back in late winter or early spring.
While it’s easy to retreat inside now and ignore the garden until the first spring bulbs start to flower, there’s an unparalleled magic in the winter garden — the pristine, ethereal beauty of a hoar frost on a bone-chilling clear morning is as heart-soaringly beautiful as any June dawn. With some planning and forethought you can maximise it.
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The trick in all of this is close observation. “If our gardens are to be more than graves commemorating summer’s beauty, we must start using our eyes,” writes Rosemary Verey in her 1988 book The Garden in Winter. “The problem all too often is that when we look, we do not see. We fail to appreciate to the full the beauty around us.”
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