Blooms warm the heart on a cold winter’s day

ANIGHT of wind and heavy rain shook the rowan berries from the trees.

In the early hours the wind dropped, the skies cleared and the temperature plummeted, freezing those berries to the ground until they resembled sprinkles on an iced cake.

I was entranced. But then winter can surprise us in all sorts of ways. It may be dark and miserable much of the time, yet it also produces fleeting moments of intense beauty, the sort that stop you in your tracks and make you forget about frozen fingers and cold feet.

Look to your roses if you need an example. These aren’t just the flowers of summer, many also carry a few blooms late into the year and if you are very lucky they might be rimed with frost, giving their petals the appearance of a Margarita glass that’s been dipped in salt. That’s what mine were like last week, making me grateful I hadn’t cut the stems back during the autumn tidy-up.

In winter, every flower is precious and one of the best areas of my garden is the photinia border.

Fed up with seeing bare earth beneath the lowest branches of this struggling hedge, I shoved in a couple of primulas. When these flourished I added more and continued doing so until now the whole border is carpeted with them, many still flowering despite the cold.

Now, every time I step out the back door I’m cheered by their pink and yellow flowers, which seem impervious to low temperatures.

Charmed by the simple beauty of these primulas, I’ve filled a large bowl with them and placed it on the patio table, which sits in front of the patio doors. From here I can enjoy it on those days when it really is too cold and miserable to set foot outdoors.

Other flowers that lift the spirits at this time of the year include winter jasmine, which carries its small, yellow flowers on a tangle of bare stems, and the Christmas rose.

The latter isn’t in fact a rose, but a hellebore (Helleborus niger), and with me it seldom flowers in time for Christmas.

But this year seems to be the exception. With three weeks still to go, the pure white flowers are already opening and I think a few blooms might find their way on to the table on Christmas Day.

Along with these I’m planning to pick a few sprigs of Christmas box (Sarcococca confusa) for its wonderful scent, and maybe a few of the scented violets and small cyclamen that are still blooming in the containers by the front door.

And of course there will be skimmias, their red buds still tightly folded, but once they come indoors these should open to reveal tiny flowers and a glorious perfume.

The flowers of winter may be small, but they are definitely worth seeking out so on the next clear, crisp day why not go out and have a root around amongst the leaf litter?

You might be surprised what is still flourishing out there.