Time to start plotting a garden revolution

IT’S not until the last of the leaves fall that you get so see what lies beneath.

Bark and twigs and branches are the framework of my garden in winter and I never tire of them.

When the sun shines, the trees on the bank above the house cast long, slender shadows down the slope and the crack willows in front of the house shimmer with silver-coloured lichen.

From the red stems of dogwoods to the rich purple of berberis branches, there’s lot of colour around.

The grey leaves of my New Zealand holly stand out on days of sunshine and frost, and the beech leaves that cling to the hedge glow like bronze.

Some of the fir trees in the woods are more blue than green and the trunks of the redwoods appear brighter in cold weather.

Do anything outdoors at this time of year and chances are you will be followed around the garden by a robin. We have several and at times they engage in noisy turf wars. But when the ground is frozen solid they are too busy hunting for food to waste their energies on fighting.

Most of the time when I’ve been outside recently I haven’t appeared to be doing very much at all.

December is a good month to make fresh plans.

Now the framework of the garden is revealed and without the frothy distraction of flowers and foliage, you can see where improvements can be made, so I’ve been rooted to the spot, gazing at some of the parts of the garden that need sorting out and trying to make up my mind what to do about them.

So far I’ve decided that an azalea at the bottom of the garden should be moved to the top of the slope. The border under the wall would work better if it was shaped to follow the sweeping line of the patio. And it’s time that the Flowering Currant that grows next to the Magnolia was given a new home, somewhere where it has space to flourish.

If you are thinking of making changes to the layout of the garden then it can help to draw them out on paper, marking existing features, plotting where the new ones will go and remembering to include practical elements like wheelie bins and the shed.

We’ve been told that that we are getting an additional wheelie bin, which will bring our tally to four. While I’m a big supporter of recycling I do worry about the impact that these giant bins can have on gardening space, particularly in new homes where plots tend to be tiny.

Yet I’ve also seen some fantastic ways of making a virtue out of their necessity, including bin sheds with green roofs and sweet peas climbing up the sides.

Others have been made entirely out of living willow that’s been woven as it grows while some gardeners have effectively disguised their bins behind non-invasive bamboos that take up little space but make an effective screen.