For many gardeners, winter means a break from endless garden jobs and a swift retreat indoors to sit by a fire and ponder catalogs and planting plans.
Photography by Cedric Pollet.
But for others, who have meticulously planned their gardens to shine in winter, the season can deliver dramatic colors, eerie textures, and mesmerizing combinations—and a reason to venture outdoors or, at least, admire the view from the fireside.
Winter Gardens : Reinventing the Season is £30, from Frances Lincoln.
Pollet’s obsession is bark—his debut book was focused solely on it—so it figures that trees play a starring role in his latest book and what quickly becomes clear is that the right cultivars can produce the most stunning effects.
But it’s the fiery red dogwoods that tend to be most popular, including Cornus sanguinea ‘Midwinter Fire’ which gradually turns from yellow at the base to red at the tips – that are often combined with white birches.
The author might be a bark geek first and foremost but his enthusiasm for winter gardens means he has really thought about how to make this book useful.
The incredible coppers and burnished orange tones of so many of the outstanding winter trees (Prunus serrula, Acer griseum, and Betula albosinensis are some of the best-known) make stunning and uplifting scenes in winter but of course they are only one side of the story.
As in any other season, the skill is in layering and deftly combining plants.
But the delicious colors of the witch hazels, from acid yellow to ginger to scarlet, steal the show, providing beautiful color and exquisite scent in the dead of winter.
At Martine Lemonnier’s Jardins de Bellevue, which holds the French national collection of hellebores, a coppery prunus looks beautiful against a scented backdrop of Sarcococca confusa.
Elsewhere, Pollet shows how the pretty pink blossom of Prunus mume Beni Chidori is a perfect pairing with the pink flowers of Helleborus x lemonnierae underneath.