Floral and hardy
Choose plants that can survive the very worst weather and you’ll have something to enjoy in the garden all winter
Even with rose-tinted specs on, the gardens of my youth were hardly exciting. You saw the same few cheap-and-cheerful shrubs in most plots: forsythia, flowering currant, roses, mock orange, spiraea, berberis, pyracantha, cotoneaster and broom.
These old faithfuls were reliable, easy to grow, and – most important of all – tough enough to withstand harsh winters.
Nowadays we have access to masses of exciting hardy plants, so we can be far more adventurous without risking annihilation in the next big winter freeze.
You will need to do your homework, though. Look online to check the hardiness rating of anything new you might want to grow.
Plants categorised as tender can suffer cold damage at 5C, half-hardy plants survive temperatures dipping almost to freezing point but they’re killed below 0C, while fully hardy means plants survive at -15C. Choosing hardier plants is only half the battle – it also pays to tweak gardening techniques to give everything the best protection.
A windy winter will turn evergreens brown with dehydration (wind burn), especially if they’re young. Even deciduous plants are affected by strong winds: tender shoots and flower buds are scorched in spring, while petals blacken and trees grow lopsided.
So if your garden is exposed, plant an outer boundary of tough shrubs such as rosa rugosa to shelter your delicate specimens.
Waterlogging is another problem, and that’s why many Mediterranean plants sometimes turn up their toes even when it’s not been very icy.
The solution is to be picky about where you plant them: full sun and well-drained soil only. They’ll also appreciate a layer of grit, worked into the top inch or two of soil. Long spells of freezing temperatures create difficulties even for hardy plants, which can die of thirst when the soil around their roots freezes solid. This is a problem for shallower-rooted species and for container plants.
The answer is insulation: spread a good thick layer of bark chippings or fallen leaves all over the soil under camellias and rhododendrons, which both have shallow roots, and any plants described as root hardy, whose tops die down but whose roots can survive with a little help. Pour a generous layer of mulch over all of your top dressing on any raised beds. As for containers, group year-round tubs of hardy plants close together in a sheltered corner so they look good but also give each other support, insulation and protection from the weather.
A few sensible precautions in the garden will do much to help most plants to come through cold spells.
Precautions will do much to help most plants to survive the cold spells