Seed capital
Resist the temptation to snip and tidy every last wayward stem, says plantsman John Hoyland. Many plants come into their own when the winter sun is low in the sky and frost rimes their almost alien seedheads
Gardens have a special magic in winter, says John Hoyland
The garden designer Piet Oudolf wrote that a plant is only worth growing if it looks good when it’s dead. Behind his hyperbole is the truth that what remains of many herbaceous plants, particularly their seedheads, can be captivating and will bring beauty into the garden on the most desolate of winter days.
Few of us want to spend much time in the garden right now, but it’s cheering to stare out of the window to admire a scene created from the framework of stems and seedheads—a scene that will be enlivened when hungry birds arrive to feed on the seeds.
In the absence of colour, it is shape and structure that are important in winter
In the absence of flowers and colour, it’s the shape and structure of plants that become important in the winter. What has the most impact are tight groups of tall spires from plants such as verbascum, agastache, liatris, lythrum and the perennial forms of digitalis. As a contrast to these strong vertical lines, there are many plants with rounded or flat-topped seedheads.
Achilleas and sedums tend to have very dark, umbel-shaped seedheads, which are
Some grasses have open, airy panicles, with seeds hanging like tiny droplets of dew
striking when seen against russet and golden grasses; many other plants have globeshaped seedheads that vary in scale from tennis-ball-sized agapanthus and alliums to tiny Pointillist flecks of sanguisorbas. However, whether you prefer strong lines or softer shapes, the effect of a winter planting is always more impressive when plants are grown in large groups.
The most imposing seedheads are the plumes of grasses such as miscanthus, calamagrostis and pennisetum. Sometimes a silvery-grey, but, more often, a bright straw colour, they act as foils to darker plants. The movement of their supple stems can animate what is, otherwise, a very static scene. Grasses such as panicum and deschampsia have open, airy panicles, with seeds hanging from them like tiny droplets of dew.
All that said, it’s important to be discriminating, as it’s only plants with strong stems or with a clear silhouette that make a contribution over winter: the rest just look a mess. Clear away the low-growing, sappy foliage of herbaceous perennials such as geraniums and hostas and the weak tall stems of plants such as dahlias and lilies that have collapsed and which will soon be mush. Not only will the garden look neater, but you’ll also be able to get into the borders to spread mulch or to drop tulips and other spring-flowering bulbs into the newly created gaps between plants.
Try to leave stems in place where sunlight will strike them from behind. They’ll provide more drama and magic than those seen against the background of a fence or hedge and, on those rare occasions when winter truly descends into the garden, ravishing images of grasses and seedheads coated in hoarfrost or dusted with snow will create a world of enchantment to rival all the hullabaloo of high summer.
Some plants are pernicious self-seeders, so, however beautiful they might be, cut them down before they can wreak their havoc. The slender stems of Verbena bon
ariensis can look elegant through the winter, but I have far too many seedlings already, thank you, so I’m ruthless in cutting them down after they’ve flowered.
Similarly, the skeletal form of the giant mullein, Verbascum olympicum, is spectacular, but you really don’t want it seeding itself, so forego its good looks and take it out.
A low shaft of sunlight glancing off a shiny red berry will relieve the gloom
Choosing which plants to leave and which to remove will very much depend on your garden. In general, lighter soils and sheltered gardens are the most welcoming to opportunistic seedlings, but what may be unwelcome in one garden might be longed for in another. I know a garden in which agapanthus and eucomis seedheads have to be removed because of their aggressive self-seeding. Would that I had that problem!
The scenes created by these dried stems and seedheads need not be monochrome. Those berries and hips that have escaped hungry birds will bring splashes of colour and add brightness and intensity to the scene. At this time of year, a low shaft of sunlight glancing off a shiny red berry or catching a yellow hip will relieve the usual gloom and can be worth more than an extravagance of midsummer colour.
The biggest source of hips is from roses that haven’t been deadheaded, but don’t stop deadheading only to encourage the plant to produce them. There’s no point in depriving yourself of the sight and scent of roses in the hope of a few extra winter hips. In fact, the best are produced on roses that don’t respond to deadheading, as these are mainly species roses, old shrubs roses and ramblers.
If you have the space, it’s worth growing a few roses specifically for their hips. I grow a hybrid dog rose called Rosa Blanche Double de Coubert not only for its fragrant white flowers, but also for the bright-red hips, which are the size of cherry tomatoes and just as glossy. The arching stems of Rosa moyesii Geranium produce a cascade or orange, vaseshaped hips that last through until March.
Berries are usually associated with shrubs and trees, but many herbaceous plants have handsome fruit. Iris foetidissima, our native stinking iris, produces fat pods bursting with shiny orange berries, even in the gloomiest of situations, and the sharp, sword-like foliage of Libertia peregrinans turns a coppery-orange in winter and also has pods of polished orange berries.
Keep an eye out for other seeds that can add to your palette of winter interest. Mollythe-witch (Paeonia mlokosewitschii), for example, will have stopped flowering six months ago, but if you leave the seedheads, you’ll be rewarded with thick pods showing off their extraordinary fruit of sparkling red and black seeds.
With a bit of forethought, and judicious selection of which plants to leave and which to cut back, it’s possible to make the garden as engaging and attractive during its annual repose as it is during its summer heydays.
As winter progresses, the goldfinches will have eaten all the seeds, the blackbirds the berries and frosts will have weakened the stems. Then, it will be time to clear everything away, but the snowdrops will be flowering, the first perennials will be emerging—a new gardening year will have begun.
John Hoyland is gardens consultant at Glyndebourne, East Sussex