Winter interest

Good design and plant planning can bring structure and interest to your garden scheme through the winter months, with many flowering and fruiting plants adding seasonal attraction.

Viburnum bodnantense ‘Dawn’ is a fragrant choice for front gardens.

Winter flowers are among the most fragrant garden blooms as they're competing to attract the rarer pollinators that are still active in cold weather. Among our favourite scented shrubs is Viburnum bodnantense 'Dawn.' Sprinkled with abundant clusters of pale pink and richly scented flowers, it's a wonderful choice for front gardens where the fragrance greets you whenever you leave or arrive at home (as well as stopping passers-by and pollinating hoverflies in their tracks!)

Flowering quince (Chaenomeles spp.) are radiant winter bloomers.

Larger shrubs and trees are lifted and available ‘root balled’ at this time of year at far lower prices than their container grown equivalents. The winter flowering cherries (Prunus autumnalis Rosea) and flowering quince (Chaenomeles spp.) look radiant in December and January, and planting now will get them established before the spring. It’s also a wonderful time to invigorate the front or back garden with winter blooms in pots and window boxes.

One of our recent winter window boxes, using flowering heather as the centrepiece.

We like to design our window boxes with evergreen, structural plants that can last all year, and change the centre pieces for seasonal interest. Here we’ve used a deep red Heuchera and trailing maidenhair (Muehlenbeckia), crowned by winter heather (Calluna spp.). Such displays make your home look so loved and inviting, and can be enjoyed from the inside looking out too!

The stunning pink sepals of winter roses (Helleborus spp.).

Hellebores are aptly named as 'Christmas roses,' whose stunning white, pink and purple sepals look like huge flower heads; but there are even some varieties of true roses that continue to flower in December. Recently, we've admired a number of Rosa ‘Iceberg’'s blooming proudly in the chilly days, which is why we won't be pruning ours until late winter. Rose hips also provide beautiful jewels of colour and are a very important food source for overwintering birds.

Beautiful roses, still blooming at 2°C.

Many semi-hardy fuchsias will continue to reward you with exotic colours until the first London frost. We're particularly fond of the white and purple bells of Fuchsia 'Delta’s Sara'. Winter jasmine (Jasminum nudiflorum) and white potato vine (Solanum laxum 'Album') are beautiful low maintenance climbers that continue to decorate walls and trellises with their generous, delicate blooms.

Fuchsia ‘Delta’s Sara’ bringing a flash of South American colour to a chilly London day.

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