Green Fingers: It makes sense to use scented plants in winter
The contorted hazel – Corylus avellana ‘Contorta’, has interesting twisted stems.
The easiest plants to grow are those that like our soil and weather conditions, and from this we can choose those plants that will please us most. While the concentration will naturally be on the spring and summer months we spend outside, there might be room to cover the rest of the year with a few well chosen selections.
As with many things in life we need to have a balance and it is no different in the garden. To achieve the most enjoyable outcome in your outdoor area is to have as much variation as you can manage while keeping the whole area coordinated and in harmony. This can be achieved with a mixture of manmade and natural objects, including living things such as plants.
We do like to step outside the home for a number of reasons and it is not straight into the garden but into an intermediate area and from there into the garden proper. The transition area between the house and the garden is usually covered with a hard surface, such as tarmac, concrete or stone, so it can be used all the year round without people getting dirty. It is an important area as it is probably the most used space and so, therefore, it is worth taking care with the landscape design in this section alone.
Evergreen plants are an important addition in the garden for a number of reasons. They are very useful in providing focal points and structure, in screening, and providing some interest during the winter when much of the other vegetation is bare, while also providing shelter and food for wildlife. The evergreen plants can be a mixture of trees, conifers and shrubs placed at strategic points around the garden, and some will flower for long periods in the winter, such as Viburnum tinus ‘Eve Price’ and varieties of Erica carnea, like ‘Kramers Red’ and ‘White Glow’.
The greater proportion of plants in the garden will be deciduous as they are usually the most floriferous, so we can forgive them for not being evergreen and losing their leaves in the autumn and, if we are lucky, they will have given us a colourful leaf fall to end their yearly growing cycle.
There are a few deciduous plants that you would use for winter colour and they include the colourful barked varieties of the dogwood plant - Cornus alba ‘Westonbirt’ - red stems, and Cornus ‘Midwinter Fire’ - orange stems, and some willows. Other plants include the contorted hazel –Corylus avellana ‘Contorta’, which has twisted stems, coupled with the catkins, making them useful in indoor decoration, and the variety ‘Red Majestic’, which has red leaves so probably the better choice. The one small tree, which has small clusters of flowers from November until April, is the Autumn Cherry - Prunus autumnalis ‘Rosea’, making it worth thinking about. The wall shrub Winter Jasmine - Jasminum nudiflorum has pleasing yellow flowers from November onwards.
Already there have been a number of useful plants mentioned above that will provide winter colour but let us go one step further and mention those that flower in winter and are fragrant too. These include the following evergreens - Daphne odora and others, with pink white flowers, ‘Mahonia x media and varieties, with yellow flowers, and Sarcococca (several), with white flowers. The fragrant deciduous ones include Witch Hazel, Hamamelis mollis, Lonicera fragrantissima and Viburnum x bodnatense ‘Dawn’.
If you have any queries or comments you are welcome to share them with me on 051 384273 or orchardstowngardencentre@hotmail.com and if of general interest I will include it in a future article.
