As the days get shorter, the garden gets brighter

week I added half a dozen Aquilegias to the growing collection of plants in pots that are accumulating at the back of the house.

At some point over the coming weeks I’ll find space for them in the front border where most of my springflowering perennials already grow.

There are many different varieties of Aquilega, but I favour the common or garden kind, which go by the common name of Columbine or ‘Granny’s Bonnets’ and have lacy foliage with flowers in shades of blue. Aquilegias are vigorous selfseeders so I’m hopeful they will quickly colonise the space beneath the Azaleas and find their way into the cracks in the supporting wall. At the moment the wall is being taken over by ferns and Hypericum and I’ve been weeding these out to allow other things to grow. The days may be getting shorter but our garden is growing brighter as the canopy above us thins out. The birch and beech trees are hanging on, but every day more of their leaves fall, making a thick blanket of gold and bronze. We will be raking leaves until Christmas but on days when there’s a glimmer of sun and the birds are singing, this feels more like a pleasure than a chore.

And being outside at this time of the year gives me the chance to decide where new things should grow.

We are very short on anything to brighten up the winter months so I’m keen to add anything with flowers that open during the cold months. Top of the list is Mahonia x media ‘Winter Sun’, which grows into a very large evergreen shrub and carries spikes of acid yellow flowers from November until March.

The only drawback is that, as at it gets larger, it develops a bare stem, so it is best to grow it in front of something that will hide its bare ankles. Viburnums and Daphnes share the same flowering season and they are as highly scented as expensive French perfume.

Spicy Witch Hazels produce filaments in shades of yellow or burnt umber when the rest of the garden remains frozen and Clematis cirrhosa ‘Jingle Bells’ is a delicate climber for a sheltered wall that gets maximum amounts of winter sun.

If you are looking for something reliably hardy, then winter-flowering Honeysuckle is a better choice.

It’s a shrub, not a climber, and not much of a looker during the summer, but from December onwards, its scent will stop you in your tracks. Plants that flower at this time of year have to work hard to attract the few insects that are still around, which is why their perfumes are so powerful. For the moment, it’s the rich scent of fallen leaves that pervades the garden, mingled with the smell of woodsmoke from the log burner and a hint of something sweeter as the tiny flowers on the Christmas Box plant start to open.