All Season Interest







                                                              Viburnum bodnantense 'Dawn'



When I moved in here in 1989 I installed a glass wall dividing  kitchen from garden with a wide sliding glass door.   I then  needed to be sure there was something interesting to look at all year round.
So there are important evergreen blocks - four golden privets about 9ft tall, cut into mopheads; a yew hedge about two thirds up the garden which provides a slab of green throughout the year and is a gorgeous backdrop for a stately cardoon,  itself an eyecatcher from March to October. The lawn,  always seems to be green no matter what conditions, drought or flooding. Then there is the Bramley apple right in the middle, which has its own sculptural interest even in winter. In summer it makes a good screen when I'm at the far end of the garden. These all provide an architectural element that contributes to giving a pleasant picture throughout the year and specially in winter when things can look a bit bare.
Throughout the year, I think that it is best to have some good splodges of colour which draw the eye rather than trying to make the whole garden a mass of colour all the time. And if this can be achieved with shrubs it adds to the architectural feeling. So, both architecturally and colourwise,  this is what I have in the garden this year. (Of course, there are other plants, but it's shrubs I'm describing here.)
In January A Viburnum bodnantense 'Dawn' brightens the gloom with masses of bright pink blobs made up of tiny flowers against the dark colour of the shed. It begins flowering in December, goes on through February and is very  cheering. Viburnum tinus and winter-flowering  honeysuckle keep it company and the honeysuckle in particular attracted bumble bees all through last winter.
In February Much the same but added to the scene  are two Echiums, self-seeded. I let them choose where they go. They are biennials, like foxgloves, and grow to 6ft with tiny blue flowers all the way up to the top -  the bees are mad about them - and so am I.
In March The Victoria plum is in full blossom waving its slender arms about in the wind and just beyond the Bamley is a Magnolia stellata, whose pure white flowers are spectacular throughout the month. Because it has many more flowers than larger magnolias, it blooms for a bit longer.

I'll describe the eye-catching structural part of the garden month by month as we get there.
Keep well

                                                         Magnolia stellata March 2020


















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