WINTER’S GLOW

Dusted with snow, this garden is an enchanting sight in the darkest days of the year

Most gardens are designed to be enjoyed in spring and summer when they’re brimming with flowers and shrubs, but this one is different. Yes, in summer Hollytree Lodge includes much to be admired, but in winter, even under a thick blanket of snow, it’s rich with warm coppers, vivid greens and sparkles of pinks and yellows.

‘We didn’t follow the rule that says when you first move to a new garden you must do nothing for a year,’ says Liz Wyatt, who inherited the mature one-acre plot nine years ago when she moved to Hollytree Lodge, just outside Dollar near Stirling, with her husband Peter. At that time, it was surrounded by beech trees and planted with more beech hedges and shrubs, which separated various parts of the garden. They provided a strong and useful framework, but the couple felt they were too big and there were too many of them, so they removed some of the shrubs, which had been there probably for decades and had run their natural lifespan. ‘There was also a parterre, which was ailing. I did my best to rescue it but it had to come out,’ says Liz. The box hedging was replaced with cordoned apples and pears, and a cuttings garden, in particular for sweet peas, was established. Liz says it’s also where homeless plants go while decisions are made about where to put them. The couple tamed the beech hedges, cutting curves into them so the tops look like waves, and they now flow around the plot, adding a softer but still dramatic structure. Regular and glowing copper beech provides most of the garden’s framework, and archways are cut into them to connect one area to another. Yew forms further lines of

SNOWY SCENE A burnished copper beach hedge and evergreen tree Cryptomeria japonica ‘Sekkan-sugi’ surround a snow-frosted seating area

FROSTED BEAUTY A mature eucalyptus stands out against the chilly winter sky Right Snow-capped scabious seed heads form sculptural shapes

LIGHT MAGIC Granite slabs lead through an archway cut into a yew hedge Left Graceful miscanthus

SHOTS OF PINK Top Pretty clusters of pink Viburnum x bodnantense flowers bring colour until the early spring months

ENJOYING THE BUZZ Above In the sunnier months, the bees come out to source nectar from the pollinatorfriendly plants. These include snowdrops, crocuses and scillas early in the year, and catkins of willow chestnut and other nut trees later on