WinTer gardens

Your patch of green can lift your spirits.

WINTER has arrived, accompanied by high winds, torrential rain and, in some places, flurries of snow.

We’ve missed out on the worst, except the downpours and everything that isn’t squelchy is sodden and dripping.

It’s at times like these you need something to lift your spirits such as a patch of primroses, flowering in defiance of the season, I discovered.

There was a geum, too, breaking out all over in bright orange flowers as if it was July.

These were flourishing as they’ve been exposed to little frost and neither realises winter has set in, but I don’t think they’ll remain under that delusion for much longer.

Despite the weather I’ve been tackling the tangle of wisterias and climbing roses that sprawl across one wall.

Two out of the three wisteria are dead and need to be removed completely. The one that’s left needs pruning and the climbing rose requires total renovation to remove the oldest of the stems and control the growth of the new shoots so they start to flower properly.

So far,the job has been stopstart not just because of the weather, but there’s so little daylight at this time of the year the window for getting things done is narrow so those untangled stems that need further shortening are laid out across the grass, like Christmas fairy lights awaiting new bulbs.

Throughout the autumn, hundreds of seedlings appeared across the garden, some of even growing through the springy, moss-covered grass.

There are alchemillas, foxgloves, sweet violets and dozens of little primulas and I’ve also discovered a small patch of aquilegia.

Many of these I’ll lift and grow on until they are a decent size, when I can replant them where I want them to grow.

More seedlings will no doubt appear next spring, which is why I haven’t rushed to start renovating the borders. There could be all sorts of exciting things just waiting to pop up and I don’t want to sweep these away before they’ve had a chance to appear.

The first year in a new garden is always a time of discovery and I’m very excited about what the coming months will bring.

Even though we are heading into the coldest season, there are signs of what lies ahead, including buds in shades of lime green and deep pink that have appeared on the azaleas.

I’m less thrilled by the patch of ground elder that’s growing beneath the roses. The woods around here are carpeted in the stuff so it is always going to find its way into the garden.

I know of one gardener who got rid of it by sieving the soil in her borders to remove every last scrap of rhizome. She succeeded in the end, but the whole project took 10 years.

I don’t have that kind of patience so I’m going to smother the weed with black polythene whenever it appears.