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House and Garden Spirit of Summer Fair

By Amanda on May 4, 2012

I’m going to be at the House and Garden Spirit of Summer Fair in a couple of weeks time as I’m giving a talk in the Interiors and Garden Theatre on the Art of Planting Design.


This is something very close to my heart as I’ve always approached planting design in the same way that I paint – using colour, mass and light to create a mood.  With plants it’s more challenging as you have seasons, growth and the vagaries of the English weather to take into account (as an aside, I remember a Dr Xargle book I used to read to my children when they were little where it described the four ‘types’ of English weather – “too hot, too cold, too wet or too windy”…!)


We British get too hung up on flowers because our too-everything weather actually gives us pretty much perfect growing conditions for a huge variety of plants so it’s much harder to be selective than if we had a climate that selected for us.  But it means, I believe, that we look at flowers in isolation, or without considering what they’re doing when they’re not in flower, and if you don’t take these into account your planting schemes are likely to be a little dull!  (however pretty the individual flowers).


So I’m going to be talking about the factors I consider when putting a planting scheme together, including creating atmosphere, using colour, texture and tone, plus a little bit of psychology as to why some plants are difficult to place (and what to do about it).

I have some tickets for the Show to give away and am offering two pairs of tickets for any day of the Show (16th-19th May at Olympia) free to anyone who books up an initial consultation with me between now and then (it doesn’t have to have taken place before the Show) – contact me for details.


My talk will be on the Wednesday, 16th May, at 3.15pm.  Do come and say hello if you’re there!

http://spiritofsummerfair.co.uk/

The photos here are from my Hampton Court garden and a private garden near Bath

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I’ve moved to Sussex!

By Amanda on April 18, 2012

I’ve just moved to Cootham, near Storrington in West Sussex.  Amazingly, the boxes are now all unpacked and I’m revelling in my gorgeous new (old!) house and in getting to know the area; I’m on the edge of the South Downs and right by Parham House.

On Sunday afternoon, as a break from unpacking, I thought I’d set off for a walk from my house and see what I could find; imagine my delight to find this:


I discovered I can walk the quarter mile or so into the grounds of Parham House, set at the base of the Downs.  The light on Sunday was beautiful, highlighting the contrasts between fresh lime greens and the dark pines, and accentuating the lines that run across the Downs.


For those of you who don’t know, my degree was in textile design, though I spent as much time painting as I could get away with.  Now my children have left home, I am free to paint again, and with the move to such an inspiring place, I feel that I am just embarking on the most creative period of my life.


I find my greatest inspiration from the natural world; the constantly changing moods and light, the slower changes of the seasons, and the contrast, and sometimes conflict, between the natural elements and man-made interventions.


And while it was fun to escape with a camera for an hour or so, I am looking forward to being able to take a sketchbook, and to start translating some of these moods to canvas.


One aspect of this landscape I am already enjoying is the contrast of hills and wetland beneath; I’ve always loved the atmosphere of marshy areas and the way that the light on the water creates a union with the sky, and will be exploiting this in my first paintings.  In the mean time I will leave you with this – a little fun on Photoshop; I was taken with the patterns the thin vertical birch trunks made along with a dusting of new leaves, and like that a little manipulation has given it the air of a batik.

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Last Lady Gardens for BBC Somerset!

By Amanda on December 20, 2011

I am feeling sad!  I’ve come to the end of an era…

I’ve been broadcasting pretty much monthly for BBC Somerset for around 8 years and today was my final outing on these particular airways; the reason being because I’m moving to Sussex.  For existing and new clients in the West Country, don’t worry, I’m not severing my connections here and still have on-going work.  For potential new clients in Sussex, hello!

For my final broadcast, I gave my top 5 tips for improving the design of your garden, and I promised to publish them here for anyone who might have missed them.

1.  Number 1 is highly practical; make a thorough assessment of what you have, including location, views, soil (that’s pH and whether clay or chalk etc) and aspect (whether shady or sunny).  You’d be surprised (or perhaps not) at the number of plants that die simply because they were planted in the wrong soil or the wrong place but it’s easy to find out what you have; just pick up a test from a garden centre, they’re cheap and take about 10 minutes and will tell you if your soil is acid, neutral or alkaline.  Check the requirements of your favoured plants and see if the conditions match, it really is as simple as that, and you’ll save yourselves a packet in no longer unwittingly killing plants that had no chance of survival.


My assessment of this small garden (above) was that it had dreadful high fences that dominated the space, cheap vertical timbers retaining the soil that drew your eye up (see 5!) accentuating the height, and heavy alkaline clay.  By contrast, this garden (below) had fabulous views, chalky soil, but no structure – the horizontals of the landscape meant that your eye doesn’t stay in the garden but wanders about rather aimlessly between the left and the right of the view.


2.  I’d like you to visualise your garden, and now, do the same again but – in your mind’s eye - take all the plants out.  What are you left with?  Something pleasing to look at?  If not, you’re expecting your plants to do all the designing for you and that’s not going to work.  It would be like buying some lovely material and sparkly jewels and velvet ribbons to make the most superb embellished evening gown, and then just throwing it all over yourself.  You need some structure to it, and so does your garden.  Keep it simple, avoid fussy curves, choose a style, such as cottage, contemporary, formal etc and stick to it for the whole garden.  I’m lucky to have been able to design around 120 gardens now so can indulge my fantasies and try one of everything, but you’ve just got the one so try not to get carried away.


This (above) is the design for the fenced garden in tip 1 – floating Portland stone block steps sitting in a sea of planting (shown as plain green here – there is no lawn).  The paths and steps are both functional and aesthetic, creating a sculptural effect when viewed from the house, their pale colour creating a wonderful contrast with the predominantly green planting.  Note that the fencing has been painted to a pale green too – this will help it recede and make the garden feel larger – and the new retaining wall, made from new railway sleepers, has been stained black to add a touch of sophistication.


This garden (above), near Bath, prior to planting, has turned what was a dark and dingy area of the garden into a beautiful, usable terrace with interesting levels and a raised pond.  You can’t see from this picture, but behind me, the land falls away to the most amazing view so I created a large terrace from which to enjoy it. 

3.  Plan for all four seasons – winter need not be dreary, in fact I love winter in my garden.  However, don’t try to fit all four seasons in one bed as you end up with something that is trying to do too much and will lose impact as a result.  Instead, plan different areas of your garden, even in a small space, that will peak at different times.  For instance, for winter interest, try a white stemmed birch underplanted with 3 red stemmed dogwoods – simple and fabulous, a treat through the winter and pleasingly green in the summer when something else can shine.


As well as birches and dogwoods, clipped box and grasses give great winter interest, especially when hoar frost outlines their forms.

4.  Ignore your boundaries – too often gardens are ‘designed’ with borders round the edges.  All this does – especially in a small garden – is to draw attention to the boundaries (very often a rather imposing fence – see pic 1 again!).  Instead, work from the house out, with all terraces, patios, borders and paths perpendicular or parallel to the house – this way you keep the focus within the garden and away from the fences.


The original driveway for this new architect-designed house in Devon (above) was perpendicular to the lane (top right).  By ignoring this boundary and making the driveway align to the house, it now relates to the house.  Similarly, the massed planting through the decked paths to the south of the house (bottom of plan) relate to the proportions of the house.  The styling of the planting (stylised meadow) ensure that the planting also relates to the wider landscape, grounding the house in its location.

5.  Use visual tricks.  This is where design gets really fun!  The eye is very easily led - give it a line and it will follow it, give it a shape like a full-stop and it will come to a halt.  So to make a long garden appear shorter, an overlooked garden feel private, or a wide garden appear deeper, use directional lines of paving and distinctly shaped plants to direct the eye where you want it to go.  Single specimen plants will draw the eye – strongly coloured or shaped will do the trick; however something interesting happens if you have two similarly distinct plants – rather than flit between them, the eye actually settles on an invisible ‘line’ between the two (and if this is where you happen to have placed your compost bins, you’ve just made a feature of them…).  We ‘read’ a garden from left to right, so try a few box balls within a border to stop the eye rushing to the end, or use plants with spear-shaped leaves to lift the eye upwards – perhaps to a distant view that you’ve noted in your assessment.


My own garden (above) has vertical timbers creating the walls of the steps to lead the eye into the garden; these are balanced by a pair of clipped box balls and horizontally tiered bamboos (Fargesia murielae Simba) – the garden benefits from wonderful views but is long and so the eye needs slowing before it reaches the end.

I have thoroughly enjoyed my broadcasts for BBC Somerset; I’ve been lucky enough to interview some great people during my years here, including taking a rainy walk with Kevin McCloud through his wonderful Somerset garden, and I’ve broadcast from local and national shows, talking with some of the greats at the Chelsea Flower Show, so I’d just like to say thank you to the beeb for having me!

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A garden of two pergolas

By Amanda on October 18, 2011

I’ve just been back to visit a garden I finished earlier this year, and thought you might like to see.


Before I started, the garden had some uncomfortable slopes, with a 4m drop from top to bottom, and also a drop from one side to the other of nearly 2m; added to which the neighbours had built a brick and flint wall along one length.  It’s a very beautiful wall - but unfortunately they built it parallel to the slope so that the pillars are actually several degrees off vertical – it’s enough to make you feel decidedly tipsy even at 10 o’clock in the morning! 

This (below) was the original view looking down the garden, which catches the afternoon and evening sun.


To maximise the enjoyment of the view, I designed a terrace right at the top of the garden, and then designed two separate pergolas, one of which sits over the top terrace, and one of which bisects the centre of the garden.  Their design features a substantial traditionally crafted oak frame, their weight balanced by fine steel cross bars, and, as well as their sculptural qualities, they act as ‘frames’ within and beyond the garden as you move through it, allowing the eye to rest on specific compositions, stopping the eye rushing to the end of the garden, and lifting the vision to the landscape beyond so that the backdrop becomes part of the garden composition.


To make the garden a more comfortable space to be in, I took out the horizontal slope, so that the garden now slopes only along its length, and not its width, with a level ‘platform’ beneath the lower pergola and a planted bank bridging the gap between the new, lower, level and the existing beech boundary hedge.  I’ve planted this bank with shrubs including deep purple buddleias, Viburnum plicatum and Viburnum opulus, through which weave a carpet of lower level perennials including geraniums, alchemilla and salvias.


Texture and rhythm are provided with plantings of Pennisetumn Hameln with its fluffy flowerheads, Persicaria superba which has been flowering non-stop since April, and the under-used Digitalis ferrunginea, which you can see rising in soft yellow spires above.

Brick steps lead you up from the lower lawn to the first pergola, a level area surrounded above and below with nepeta (catmint) and Verbena bonariensis and planted with scented roses.  Black and white tulips will give spring interest.

 
Just below this first pergola, a curved seat, ultimately sitting in the shade of a newly planted Acer griseum, and placed within the planting, echoes the curve of the lawn beneath.  You can also just see one of three Prunus subhirtella (winter flowering cherry trees) that I planted at the bottom of the garden to break the strong line of the existing lonicera nitida hedge. 


From this half-way resting point, a gently rising self-binding gravel path leads to the upper pergola and oak deck, while ‘stepping stones’ of basket weave brick create a more subtle path through the lawn.  While I was visting, my client’s grandson was enjoying the circular trip these paths afford!


The upper deck area is planted with simple green and white; a multi-stemmed white barked birch (Betula utilis jacquemontii) is underplanted with ferns and woodruff, and surrounded with white Japanese anemones (Anemone x hybrida ‘Honorine Jobert’) which have been intermingled with the delicate grass Deschampsia cespitosa which catches every last drop of the evening light.  The remainder of the planting through the garden is in pastel shades of pinks, purples and whites with soft yellows and blues and a few drifts of Salvia ‘Caradonna’ for contrast.


Repeated use of silver leaves and interlocking drifts of plants has created a tapestry of colour and texture, and I particularly like this combination of Potentilla recta with Stachys byzantina (above).


Already the oak is beginning to silver nicely, and about that tipsy wall?  Planting keeps a distance between the oak frames and the wall pillars, keeping the eye away from the oddity, so the only tipsy thing in the garden now is my clients, enjoying a g&t in the evening light.  Ahhhh………..

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Open Garden, RNAS military cemetery, Yeovilton

By Amanda on September 21, 2011

As part of the Society of Garden Designer’s 30th Anniversary celebrations, 30 gardens across the UK have been selected to showcase the best of British design and I’m delighted to say that my design for the extension to the military cemetery at Yeovilton (see portfolio) has been selected as one of these gardens.


The Open Garden event is Sunday 25th September, and while this is a public site that you can visit at any time, the official opening will be between 12 noon and 4pm.  I will be there for the event, so come along and have a look, and bring any garden design queries you may have – I’d be delighted to give some informal (and free of charge!) consultations during the afternoon.  You’ll also be able to see my plans for this and other gardens, and to see how the cemetery will develop over time as it begins to be used.


The Society of Garden Designers (of which I am a Registered Member) is the only professional body representing garden designers in the UK; in an unregulated business it gives the public reassurance that in employing a Registered Member they are selecting a designer who has passed the SGD’s rigorous adjudication procedure.

For more on the SGD and the Open Garden event, see http://www.rhs.org.uk/Gardens/News/See-great-British-design-in-private-gardens and http://www.sgd.org.uk/Article/Detail.aspx?ArticleUid=8DEEF7DA-523B-44B7-BCCE-FFAA83813385

The cemetery is behind St Barts Church in Yeovilton village – look out for the Open Gardens arrows and I look forward to seeing you there!

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John Makepeace’s garden of grasses, Dorset

By Amanda on September 6, 2011

I had a bit of a busman’s holiday last Sunday, visiting the eminent furniture maker John Makepeace’s garden in Beaminster.


It’s always interesting seeing how a craftsman in one medium transfers ideas and concepts into another, and the Makepeace garden is no exception.  I suppose it’s no surprise that there are few straight lines, given that John is influenced by organic forms and the natural characteristics of the wood that he transforms into furniture.


However, the curves that he has introduced are bold and unfussy – essential to balance the exuberance of the grasses – and encompass both horizontal and vertical planes.  Too often gardeners look only to the plan, without capitalising on the fact that creating a garden is creating a 3-dimensional, sculptural space.


In the Makepeace garden, the horizontal line of the sweeping Purbeck stone and slate terrace intersects with the curve of the sunken pond beneath it, and this in turn is crossed by the arch of the bridge.  But even here, the horizontals are not rigid but are themselves curved – there are shallow wooden steps up onto the bridge which then sweeps down into the summerhouse – a double whammy of a curve as it is reflected in the pond.  A stroke of genius!  Added to this, and accentuating this beautiful line, the underside of the bridge is painted a bright pink – picking up the soft pink tones of the Molinia Transparent grass and providing just enough colour to complement without competing against the composition.


Against these horizontal lines, strong verticals are provided by the stone circular studio and the massed use of the very vertical grass Calamagrostis Karl Foerster, seen above with the pale Poa labillardieri in front, and the almost invisible form (until you see it move) of Stipa gigantea that lines the path in front of the wall that encloses this small garden.


The studio itself is a delight; a large round sofa that invites a long sprawl where you are cocooned with reflections in both glass and water - and just for fun, a Tony Heywood jewelled sculpture on the wall behind.  It’s here that you really appreciate the beauty of grasses; their contrasts in form and texture, their varied movement from stiff to so airy you almost can’t see them, and their ability to capture the light.  Pass me a cream tea, please John, I think I’m here to stay. 

http://www.johnmakepeacefurniture.com
 http://www.tonyheywood.com/

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update to Taunton garden

By Amanda on June 30, 2011

I’ve just been back to visit the garden I designed at Trull, near Taunton in Somerset, a year after completion.  You can see pictures of this garden as it’s being built (and as it was before) in my blog archive for February 2010.


If you remember, the box knot was already in place, and it gives a lovely sense of maturity to the garden – it’s hard to believe the rest was planted just a year ago!


The main border is designed to have strong colour and has predominantly the same height planting so that you view the layers of planting horizontally.  Solid forms mingle with light and airy forms to create constantly changing plant combinations as your viewpoint changes, while giving a strong sense of unity and rhythm to the border.  The silvery Stachys at the front gives just enough grounding to balance the exuberance.


Above; iceberg roses, Geranium Brookside and Salvia Caradonna.

On the opposite side of the lawn, under a beautiful brick wall (the garden is part of what was once the Victorian walled garden to the ‘big’ house), shady for most of the year, is a textural border with limited colour (so as not to compete with the main border);


and slightly further on, still beneath the wall, an urn is cushioned with Hakonechloa macra, white foxgloves and Polystichum ferns.


One of the areas I’m most pleased with is the herb garden.  Ultimately, this garden will be enclosed from the main garden with a yew hedge, and from the vegetable garden with a beech hedge.  It features a sunken brick-edged pond, self-binding gravel paths and some structural plants within the herb planting; specifically, cubes of box and lots of Stipa gigantea.

I thought you might like to see these pictures, taken by my clients, earlier in the year and through last winter:


It’s lovely to know how good the garden looks in winter, even if it does make me feel chilly! 

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Chelsea flower show 2011

By Amanda on May 24, 2011

I’ve just come back from two days at the show – lucky me!  You can catch my Monday morning broadcast for BBC Somerset during the next week on their website’s Listen Again feature (see ‘things I like’ for link).

This is my 11th successive visit to Chelsea and one of the most interesting things over the years has been seeing the changes in fashions that subtley echo the mood of the times.  For the last few years the gardens have been quite subdued, concentrating on texture rather than colour, so it’s refreshing to see this year to see so much colour about.  However, while some of the colours are strong, with a lot of yellow in particular, the planting is on the whole very light and airy; lots of diaphonous plants like fennel and Cleve’s parsnip flowers, lots of soft whites flitting between it all, so that the effect is never heavy.

 
This is Cleve West’s Daily Telegraph Garden (above and below) which was my favourite and deserved winner for Best in Show.  Cleve is the master of the understated space, never too fussy, quality detailing, perfect proportions but above all a knack of seeing things just differently enough to come up with something fresh.  Here he’s created a sunken garden inspired by visits to ancient ruins in Libya, but the twist in the garden is to exchange old for new with textured concrete pillars in place of ancient columns – some standing, some ‘fallen’.  This, to me, is what Show Gardens should be about – a fantasy, theatre, a story. 


His planting, too, is perfection – there is a rythym created in the planting through the unifying use of yellows and plants with similar tones such as the whites of Camassias and silver artemisia; all linked by the perfectly understated form but strong colour of the magenta Dianthus Cruentus that runs through the garden.  


For the two days I was at the show, the light was very bright and unforgiving.  However, for once, for many of the gardens this was an asset.  The cleverly chiseled water channels in Tom Hoblyn’s Homebase Garden sparkled; the contrast between the dark backdrop and trunks of the tree ferns highlighted interesting textures and accentuated the contrast between the solid mass of the rhododendrons against the lightness of the pale blue Corydalis.


The light benefitted Nigel Dunnet’s garden too – highlighting the light catching properties of his planting, and defining the textural contrasts between rough stone and smooth wood in his wonderful benches.


And finally Diarmuid Gavin’s garden, where the sharp light accentuated the different forms of topiary and grasses to great effect.  He’s played around with these ideas before at Chelsea, with contrasts between clipped and soft forms, but I felt he had mastered the art this time, perhaps by having a larger scale to play with.  It helped that his conical hornbeam trees were exceptionally beautiful!

 
The small gardens were excellent this year, with lots of good ideas to be inspired by.  I particularly liked the textures of the hard landscaping in the RNIB garden designed by Paul Hervey-Brookes (below)


and Olivia Kirk’s rough/smooth textures and clever detailing over water in her Power of Nature garden (below).


The use of textured and sleek stone and meadow-style planting are not the only naturalistic trends at Chelsea.  I was intriuged to see several gardens featuring shallow water channels with stones in their base – as if stylising a natural stream bed.  Admittedly this was something that Ulf Nordfjell used in his 2009 Chelsea garden, but this year many gardens have risen to the theme.  I believe this more naturalistic approach, and the inspiration from natural features, stems from a need to be more in tune with nature - reflecting perhaps a shift towards more traditional values as the recession has taken its toll over the last few years.  These naturalistic water channels replace the trend for using black dye in water (to maximise reflections) which has been de rigeur at Chelsea for such a long time that it’s surprising to find it suddenly looking out of date.

 
Chelsea is always a spectacle and I’m fascinated by the number of innovative ways people find to celebrate flowers.  One of the most extraordinary features I’ve ever seen has to be a Thai temple, recreated from 100,000 orchid flowers.  The sight of so many perfect orchids is exciting enough in itself -


but just look what they’ve made from them…


And by contrast, at the same exhibit, I watched as this gentleman made scultpures from bamboo leaves.

  
I’m going to end this very personal reflection with what I think is the cleverest idea that I saw at the show.  Looking at first like blocks of white stone offset from each other, I realised – because they were moving – that the blocks were paper.  I’m surprised to see that this garden only won Bronze – but I hope the designer, William Quarmby, is not deterred from entering again – novel ideas such as this (yes, I know, a terrible pun!) should be celebrated and encouraged!

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national award for my Bruton garden!

By Amanda on March 5, 2011

I’m thrilled that the garden I designed in Batcombe, near Bruton http://www.amandapatton.co.uk/portfolio/batcombe/ has won its category in the Association of Professional Landscapers (APL) awards for 2011.


These major awards celebrate the outstanding skills and craftsmanship that go into making the very best gardens and I’m delighted for Original Landscapes that this is the third year in a row that they’ve taken the top prize in their category (categories determined by project value).


As well as the features you can see on my portfolio page, the garden also has a natural swimming pond (above), secluded small deck (below),


herb garden (below) and a mix of crisply sawn York paving with rubble walling, which marries the old and the new and allows the gently contemporary garden to ‘feel at home’ with the ancient building.


The judges were Mark Gregory (Chair of the APL and multi-award winner at Chelsea), James Alexander Sinclair (posh tv garden designer with hat), Stuart Marler (TVG Landscaping), Chris Young (deputy editor of The Garden) and Mark Wood of Bradstone.  The judges commented:  “The team appear to have effortlessly combined old and new materials and seamlessly blended hard and soft landscapes.  A fantastic project all round.”


Presenting the award, Mark Wood commented that “It is so refreshing to know that these types of schemes exist and we really hope that these prove an inspiration to landscapers and consumers as a whole.”

 
Rob Green (left) and Paul Eckett (right) receiving their award.  Chair of the judging panel Mark Gregory said, “We had a very tough decision on our hands.  Often there will be one or two entries that really stand out but this year there were more than a handful that were outstanding.  Many congratulations to Original Landscapes on their success.”

Well done from me too guys, and thank you for another beautifully made garden – you deserve the award!  Thanks too for allowing me to use your pictures on this post.

Original Landscapes http://www.original-landscapes.co.uk 
Association of Professional Landscapers http://www.landscaper.org.uk/

 

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why I love winter

By Amanda on February 13, 2011

As I’m writing this, it’s lashing with rain, the wind is thrashing my black bamboos against the window and it’s not exactly warm, so why, you might ask, is this a season to enjoy?


I realised a while back that while we all think spring and summer are lovely, there are just as many summer days when it’s lashing with rain, horribly windy and not exactly warm, so there is no good reason not to enjoy the winter as much as the summer.


I’ve never held with the idea of ‘putting the garden to bed’ for the winter.  Without the distraction of flowers, this is a great time to enjoy the structure of a garden, especially when that structure has been designed to take advantage of the dual lights of winter – the very soft light, where greens are nearer to yellows, as in the photos above and below, and the very harsh light, when the very low angle of the light brings a cool clarity and contrast not seen at other times of year. 


The more gardens I design, the more I have come to value the use of natural features to create divisions and frames within a garden;  hedges, trees, water and grasses give great structure throughout the year, but they also allow for contrasts of mass (solid yew hedges, or even just a backdrop of dark tree trunks as in this photo above) against the airy movement of grasses whose flowers persist through the winter, like this Miscanthus below.


And just look at the patterns!

 
The cool intensity of winter light really accentuates the colour of stems too – this Cornus alba Elegantissima (below) positively glows – and Cornus Midwinter Fire is even better with deep orange many-branched stems.


And what a great contrast below; the softness of the light on the background trees, and the intensity of the light bringing out the colour of this Salix alba at Stourhead – an effect doubled with the reflection in the water.


In fact, the more I think about what it is that I like about winter, the more I realise that it’s all about the light – whether soft or harsh, whether it’s muting or accentuating the colours.  I believe a manipulation of natural light in all seasons adds a dimension to our enjoyment of and experience within a garden, or indeed any outdoor space, the importance of which isn’t recognised as widely as it should be.  In an age where so many of us are stressed, tired, over-worked and generally unhappy, how much does something as simple as this sunset, below, lift the spirits?

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