1. Art and Diseño

2
Gardening Notes
Gillian Goodson, Garden Designer, embraces the January garden
T
he big push for Christmas and the
New Year festivities are over and
January may feel a little flat, if not
around the mid-riff. It’s cold outside so all
the more tempting to keep that front door
firmly shut. Those a little more daring will
be rewarded for embracing the spirit.
There’s something special about feeling
cold air on your face while the rest of you
is, hopefully, warm, tilting your face slightly
upwards and taking a deep breath of crisp,
cold air, your lungs tingling with mixed
delight and shock.
The days are starting to lengthen, and
there is activity to be found in gardens
and nature. We just need to be a little bit
more attentive. A handful of worthy plants
among some strong contenders to be on
the lookout for are:
Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Pallida’ (witch
hazel) bright, lemon-yellow clusters of
sweetly scented flowers on bare twigs. The
clusters are like a child’s art project gone
wrong, endearing but possibly scary at
the same time. If yellow isn’t for you, try
Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Diane’, which
has coppery-red flowers.
The aptly named Cornus sanguinea
‘Midwinter Fire’ (dogwood) is an explosion
of fiery-orange, yellow throughout winter
and all the more glorious against a dark
backdrop such as a deep, evergreen
hedge, Taxus baccata; our native yew.
A great choice not just for smaller gardens
is Prunus serrula (Tibetan cherry). It has
shiny, polished-like mahogany-coloured
bark. It is beautiful throughout the year but
can stop you in your tracks in winter—it is
hard to resist touching that spectacular
bark and is wonderful under-planted with
winter-flowering bulbs.
That leads me neatly to snowdrops. There
are keen devotees whose knowledge
would far surpass mine, and rare bulbs,
which fetch in the hundreds of pounds.
Whether you’re a ‘galanthophile’ or not,
there is much admiration in something so
seemingly delicate yet which has stalwart
strength and hardy determination. An
early-flowering one is the honey-scented,
nodding, white heads of Galanthus elwesii,
which will take you from January through
to February.
On dark, wet days it’s a great time to open
those catalogues and search for inspiration:
order your seeds! Some sweet pea
enthusiasts will be busy sowing seeds
indoors and potato ones will be chitting
first early seed potatoes. For others, it’s a
good time to carry out repair jobs including
painting or treating fences, sheds and the
like on drier days. Whatever you do,
remember to feed our feathery friends,
as food sources will be scarce or frozen!
Galanthus elwesii—look out for early snowdrops
Welland Vale Garden Inspirations
Glaston Road, Uppingham, Rutland
LE159EU Tel: 01572 822729
www.wellandvalegardeninspirations.co.uk