Hide bare soil beautifully
SOME OF THE best winter ground-level plants have marbled foliage reminiscent of melting snowflakes. The new marbled hellebores, known as the Rodney Davey Group, have a mixture of pink and silver marbling on their leaves, so don’t cut them off. They include the now iconic ‘Anna’s Red’ and ‘Penny’s Pink’ and both do well in semi-shade in good soil. You could use autumn-flowering Cyclamen hederifolium at the front of a woodland area, for its pointed frosted foliage. Pulmonarias are also good value and ‘Diana Clare’ has violet-flowers and verdigris foliage. Pulmonaria saccharata ‘Leopard’ has stunning green strappy
Some ground-level plants have marbled foliage like melting snowflakes
leaves heavily spotted with silver. For a sunnier spot, opt for the frosted foliage of heucheras and heucherellas, with tempting names like ‘Sugar Plum’, ‘Silver Scrolls’ and ‘Hocus Pocus’. Or, try thistle-like Galactites tomentosa, for its spiky silver-and-white rosette. It’s a biennial and lots of biennials produce good winter rosettes including some verbascums and our native foxglove, Digitalis purpurea. You could also opt for a silvered edging plant such as lamb’s ears, Stachys byzantina ‘Silver Carpet’ or Lamium maculatum ‘White Nancy’. If it’s rich greens you’re after, the rounded foliage of Asarum europaeum is low growing enough to front a shady border and you could add a splash of gold with finely beaded Bowles’s golden grass, Milium effusum ‘Aureum’ or broader-leaved golden woodrush, Luzula sylvatica ‘Aurea’. Their foliage keeps its golden colour in winter and the spreading burgundy rosettes of Ajuga reptans ‘Burgundy Glow’ would act as a foil. Bergenias, often called elephant’s ears, have lavish winter foliage if given good drainage and shelter. One of the best for a small garden is ‘Overture’, because this compact bergenia cultivar colours up to beetroot-red and produces lots of upright bright-pink flowers in spring. You can provide a textural contrast with the easy-to-grow Epimedium versicolor. The heart-shaped leaves develop red veins followed by trembling pale yellow and white flowers in spring, held on wiry stems. Team this with the beetroot foliage of our native woodland spurge, Euphorbia amygdaloides ‘Purpurea’, and you’ll get rosettes of wine-red foliage and lime-green crosiers of f lower.