Winter’s Quiet Spark
I won’t lie to you; I was quite concerned that I wouldn’t be able to find a plant or flower in bloom for my Gallery webpage, to mark each bleak, dreary day of December. Too late for any late flowering perennials and too early for any bulbs or winter flowering shrubs.
But what started out as a seemingly Herculean task became an exciting challenge. Clearly, I would have to look further afield than my own garden, once I had posted coloured dogwoods, pittosporum and evergreen climbers. I’m no walker by any means, but the need to find a-plant-a-day coaxed me out of my post-foodfest stupor in search of suitable material.
And what a revelation! Now, there’s greenery aplenty in our neighbouring garden suburb, but amongst our local urban landscape? Mean pickings. Or so I initially thought. Suddenly, everywhere I looked, I saw evergreen hedges that I had walked past dozens of times, covered in red, orange and yellow berries. Ivies of all variegations, clothing the front of houses and the backs of garages. Periwinkle spreading over bare soil at ground level.
Evergreen shrubs can get some pretty bad press for most of the year, but come the winter, the landscape would look positively spartan without them. Eleagnus, grisellinia, spotted laurel, may be stiff and static, but they make colourful hedges, often disguising concrete walls, and greening up carparks.
And trees! The trailing, naked branches of a weeping willow, silhouetted against a bright blue sky. White bark of the silver birch; shining, coppery bark of the Tibetan cherry. Contorted hazel and orange, twisted willow. None of these is rare and can be seen in many a front garden. But how they come into their own in winter!
All this before you even stray inside a wood or local park. Then you start to spot smaller gems. By January, bulbs are starting to emerge alongside the leafy pathways; the earliest of all, bright yellow winter aconites and clumps of snowdrops. Camellias - single red Yuletide and snow-white Alba Simplex, with their proud yellow centres – are starting to bloom. Marbled cyclamen leaves, the perfect foil for their dusky pink and white flowers, carpet the earth.
And Finally, as the saying goes, that moment, when I catch the fresh fragrance of sarcococca on the cold, still air, is the moment when I feel the green shoots of optimism starting to appear. Spring is only a breath away.
Love, Caroline
Photo: Snowdrops at Welford Park, Berkshire
