Kevin Tooher: Winter interest in your garden.

Perhaps it’s a little early to allow the w-word into our conversation, but best to be forewarned, and to put in plans for, as Kevin’s title suggests, sustaining interest in our gardens over the bleak months to come. Kevin, who runs the Sir Planatalot website dedicated to helping people plan their gardens, as well as running courses at Hadlow College and Brogdale, took us through an extensive inventory of plants and planting schemes, with half an eye on the soil types we have in Ash; not every plant suits our conditions. He allowed questions during the progress of his talk, rather than a Q & A session at the end, and there was no shortage of these! 

Helpfully, he began by setting out a system of classification before taking us on a tour through the plant inventory: Evergreens, Winter flowering plants, Berries and hips, and so on. This was a great help in organising the plant information, and our memories of it, although of course there is considerable overlap between these features, as we shall see. 

Evergreens. Some authorities recommend that a third of the plants in your garden should be evergreen, but this won’t suit everybody; some people don’t like conifers, for instance. Perhaps just a few would add the requisite structure. 

Winter flowering plants. Flowering apricot, Prunus mume: flowers in March. Good autumn colour, and fruit. Flowering cherry, P. subhirtella autumnalis: flowers in October, even through the winter in mild years. It has pink and white forms. Quaking aspen, Populus tremula; a large tree which holds its leaves later than others. 

Persian ironwood, Parrotia persica: flowers appear in January, and are scented. Good autumn leaf colour, in fact Kevin considers it the best in this respect. Flowering in January attracts the very small flies that can be seen dancing in the air on bright days: these are the main pollinators of winter-flowering plants. Thus winter flowers tend to be small. Turkish hazel, Corylus colurna: produces very long catkins. Cornelian cherry, Cornus mas: scented flowers in February. Winter sweet, Chimonanthus praecox; needs to ‘cook’ in summer, so best planted against a sunny wall. Easy to grow from seed, but can take ten years before it flowers. It’s at its best as a winter plant. Shrub honeysuckles, e.g. Lonicera x pupusii, all flower in winter. Viburnum x bonantense ‘Dawn’ flowers well , in pink (there is also a white form) and should not be pruned too severely, otherwise it will lose its arched shape. V. tinus ‘Eve Price’ is better than the standard V. tinus and flowers all winter and can stand full shade. A dwarf willow, Salix gracilis tyla ‘melanostachis’ grows to about 3ft and produces black catkins. V. farreri is strongly scented, in February. White forsythia, Abeliophylum distichum, like its yellow relative, flowers in February, but only grows to 3ft maximum. 

Daphnes, e.g. mezerium, grow well on chalk; Stachynus chinensis ‘Cecilia’ is particularly good. Another is Daphne laureola, which grows only to about 18 in, and is a good woodland plant. A small tree or shrub, related to Hamamelis,  which you don’t see very often is Syncopia chinensis. Azara microphylla is an evergreen shrub, 7-8ft, with small leaves, flowers in February with small yellow flowers, strongly scented. The strawberry tree, Arbutus unado, will grow happily in chalk soil, but the fruits are not good eating. Edgworthia grandiflora was popular a few years ago. It produces yellow and white flowers, strongly scented, in February, and should be OK in chalky soil, as it needs good drainage. Grevilleas are Australian plants; G. rosmarinifolia flowers for up to seven months and is easy to grow. Correa backhouseana is in flower now (September) and will remain so up to Christmas. Mahonias: M. lomeriifolia has more pairs of leaflets than some of the standard varieties, and is scented; all mahonias flower in the winter. Sarcoma hookeriana ‘Regina’ grows to 3-4ft and flowers around the end of January, despite its common name of ‘Christmas box’. It can be grown in the ground and has nice red stems. 

Winter flowering jasmine is not a climbing plant, but a ‘lax’ shrub that needs supporting. Prune about one-third of stems every three years to keep it tidy. Clematis should all grow well here; c. armandii ‘apple blossom’ has evergreen leaves and pink flowers and should flower in March; unusually for clematis it is scented. C. cirrhosa ‘Freckles’ is another winter flowering variety and like most of these needs a frame so that you can look up through the foliage and flowers. Any clematis bought from a supplier will tend to be very small and will disappear if you plant them in the ground, so grow them on in pots first until they are large enough to plant out. Winter flowering clematis are dormant in the summer.