The Garden in Winter
by Judith Irven

"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven: A time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to reap."

Ecclesiastes, Chapter 3, verses 1 and 2

One July, while visiting my father-in-law in Florida, we went to see his neighbor’s garden. Colorful petunias, impatiens as well as many other less familiar flowers filled her small back yard. The following January we again went to see the same cheerful lady, and I was amazed to find that her garden appeared unchanged—six months had passed and she was still enjoying in the same colors and the same flowers. To each unto his own! In July my garden is alive with people and flowers, hummingbirds and butterflies, all living summer to the fullest. And come January, snow covers my sleeping garden, and the only movement is that of chickadees feeding outside the kitchen window. Perhaps this is not for everybody, but I delight in my winter garden too.

Some might think of a northern winter as a sad time, no flowers, no color. But for me this time of year also has its own specialness, which furthermore is magnified purely by its contrast to the other seasons. Winter offers space to enjoy things we may overlook in summer’s visual overload, like the subtle undulations in the land and sharp outlines of garden steps, walls and arbors. The structure of the garden is becomes apparent, laid out like a map before us. We see larger views and longer shadows than at other times of year. There are certain plants too that come into their own without the competition of a myriad flowers. In some ways the winter garden is as much about what is not there as it is about what is there! Let’s look at the special charms of a snow covered winter landscape and how to make a garden that is beautiful even though our plants are resting.

The cadence of the seasons
Part of the magic of the winter comes from its sheer difference to the other three seasons. For six months of the year color dominates our visual experience. Spring has the brightest clearest colors of all, with daffodils in yellow and white, tulips the colors of lipstick, and young grass almost a chartreuse-green. As spring gives way to summer, perennials of all hues and tones steal the scene; we are captivated by nature’s diversity and exuberance. Then autumn gently knocks and we bid our summer garden a bitter-sweet farewell. While this is the season of stiff sedums, drooping seed heads and fading ferns, it is also the time when our trees cloak themselves in hues of red, orange, brown and yellow and purple asters dot the landscape.

The winter landscape, by contrast, has a compelling simplicity all its own, with stark shapes, shadows and silhouettes, set off against a fresh fall of white snow, that no other time of year can match.

While almost half a year can be considered ‘winter’ where I live in Vermont, (just count the months if you don’t believe me: November, December, January, February, March, and April) winter is by no means monolithic. The outdoor world changes from day to day. Sunshine or mist, snow or rain, all affect what we see as we look outside.

Then, as the months pass, broader differences emerge. On many a morning in November we wake to find everything coated in a ghostly shining frost, highlighting the shrubs and heathers against a white lawn. By December thin snow covers everything, just enough to obscure some of the familiar details of the garden. But the outline of paths and flowerbeds are still visible and the floor plan of the garden is readily apparent. Seed-heads of perennials like achillea and astilbes are readily seen. By January the snow is usually deeper, so that now I see just suggestions of things on the ground. But now the backdrop of spruce along the north and eastern sides of the garden call attention to themselves, as the newly fallen snow is caught in their branches. And the red fruits of winterberries and crab apples positively shine against the white. These too are the months when the sun traces its lowest arc in the sky, leaving huge long shadows streaking across the white ground.

By February and March, as we approach the Equinox, the days become longer and sunnier. And with this ever-increasing day length, both people and plants sense the coming of spring. Tree buds begin to swell. Sap starts to run. And in the greenhouse, plants grow like there is no tomorrow.

My relationship with winter
Gardeners approach winter in many ways. Some of us while away the months dreaming about next summer’s garden, browsing luscious garden books received at Christmas or bought, months earlier, in a moment of impulse. Some of us act out our dreams by ordering seeds and plants from the multicolored catalogs that pop into our mailboxes the first week of January, or perhaps by breaking out squared paper and drawing up elegant designs for next summer’s garden.

As a gardener I put on record that I enjoy winter. Winter certainly finds me in front of the wood stove, perusing my garden books and seed catalogs. This is a time to catch up on reading and writing and a time to dream of distant summers. But I also delight in the winter landscape, both when snow shoeing through quiet woods, and in seeing my garden through new eyes.

Throughout the growing seasons my relationship with my garden is that of a doer, often a very active doer. But in wintertime that all changes: I am now an observer of that space I call my garden. The winter garden has its own beauty, and it is one that I passively absorb from my kitchen window.

Seeing the winter garden
In wintertime my garden in winter becomes a study in black, white and tones of gray, with all the simplicity and elegance of a monochromatic picture. Like an abstract painting, I am drawn to its shapes and to the relationships between those shapes, rather than to specific objects that that can be labeled or named. Familiar trees, now leafless, stand tall and proud against a brilliant blue winter sky. Elongated shadows run like giant stilts across a sparkling white lawn. And many months ahead, when serious gardening begins again, I will recall these beautiful pictures.

Sometimes the winter garden becomes the ghost of summer. As I gaze out at the skeletons of tall Miscanthus grasses, frozen stiff above the snow, I recall the way, just a few months earlier, their purple plumes swayed in the breeze. Desolate garden furniture reminds me of perfect summer evenings when my husband and I sat in our gazebo, safe from marauding bugs, watching the sun set behind the mountains to the northwest. Seeing the outline of the broad perennial bed, I recall the sweat and effort I expended in the humid heat of July, and the anxious moments when the wind blew extra strongly and I went dashing out in the rain to prop up wayward flowers.

It is worth remembering that we mostly see the winter garden from our windows. These are the views that count in the winter.

Structure dominates the winter garden
In winter, first and foremost, it is the structure and form of the garden that makes the picture compelling. Gardeners call this ‘the ‘bones of the garden’! Without the distraction of color and texture, we look less at individual elements, whether a flowerbed, patio or path. Instead, at a single glance we absorb the wider expanse, and see the interplay of the individual components.

And so winter becomes the perfect time to ask whether we like what we have designed and where improvements might be made. I use an upstairs window to survey my garden and see whether the individual spaces form a cohesive whole, or if some parts are more like disjointed offsets. This in turn sends me back to the drawing table to seek design adjustments that might improve the picture.

Similarly the structure of a beautifully shaped tree, with its branches highlighted by fresh snow, truly becomes a living sculpture in the winter garden. I will also pay attention to the shrub with a than less pleasing shape, and on a sunny day venture out for a little judicious pruning. Simply removing a crossing branch or a thinning out a cluttered center can make the world of difference.

Early on in the making my Vermont garden, I planted an informal bed of serviceberries and shrubs to the north of the house. Its primary purpose was structural, to soften the view of the house as seen from the pond and to form a green backdrop for the whole back garden. However this planting, within easy sight of my kitchen window, creates a perfect launching platform for the birds that flock to our feeders. These winter visitors remind me of the life that is inherent in all gardens. And when, on a really cold night, the temperature dips to below -20 °F, the tenacious survival of chickadees, goldfinch, redpolls, woodpeckers and nuthatches is nothing short of a miracle.

Making a beautiful winter garden
A compelling winter garden starts with a strong spatial design. And since in the North Country our gardens may be shrouded in snow for some or all of winter, this design needs to be highlighted by good looking vertical elements.

Major garden structures, such as an arbor, a gazebo or a fence, become great winter accents, especially when they are paired with shrubs or small trees. Other suggestions for highlighting the spatial design of the garden include edging the patio with small shrubs, perhaps three feet high, marking an entrance with a pair of intermediate sized evergreen trees, or outlining the vegetable garden with a low fence.

However, components like beds, patios, paths, however well highlighted to show up in the winter, are just the piece-parts of the overall space that is our garden. Obviously, especially in winter, we want each piece-part to be a pleasing shape. But we need to go further! Because in winter we tend to take in a wider angle at once, we also become much more aware of the manner in which these individual piece-parts come together as an integrated whole. Is this whole as pleasing as its parts?

Imagine you are composing a series of pictures, with your windows as their frames. Ask yourself which windows you most often use to view the garden. Stand in these windows and mentally record what you see. How well do the spaces inter-relate? How could this integration be improved?

If you can see distant vistas from your window include these in your ‘picture’, and if they are attractive, think about accenting them, perhaps with one or more well placed trees.

It is easy to overlook the fact that different viewing levels can offer different perspectives. Downstairs rooms provide a near-in view where we are more aware of closer objects. From an upstairs window we take in a longer view and distant objects become more evident. If you spend time in both places, then check both views!

The planning for next year’s winter garden is done now, this winter. But the doing will be done in the spring and summer, when you are making other changes to your garden. So, to remind yourself of the good and the not so good, as it currently exists, make sketches or take photographs, Then make new sketches, or write up notes if you prefer, for where you would like to see additions or changes.

A stellar role for trees and shrubs
It goes without saying that trees and shrubs play a stellar role the winter garden. A single beautiful crab apple tree becomes a living sculpture, with its branches outlined by snow and perhaps some fruit still holding to the tips. Shrubs are invaluable to highlight a dramatic spatial design; imagine an elegant circular patio edged with snow-laden spireas.

Shrubs and trees often have wonderful visual qualities in winter, especially when seen against the snow. The book ‘Landscape Plants for Vermont’ has a most useful chart at the back listing plants with multi-season interest. I especially like red-twigged shrubs like Cornus alba ‘Ivory Halo’ or Rosa rubrifolia, and plants with persistent fruit like winterberries, and some crab apples and viburnums. So next spring, when shopping for a new shrub or tree look for one that will light up the winter landscape.

When it comes to trees and shrubs in winter, people tend to think immediately of evergreens, and indeed they are a wonderful asset. But think beyond a row of identical evergreen shrubs like yews, all pruned to the same height. And beware the indiscriminate planting of evergreens species—hemlocks and blue spruce just to name a couple—which are destined to be forest-sized trees. We have all seen the little house completely overwhelmed by large evergreens that have long since outgrown their allotted spot in the landscape.

The best evergreens for use in the confines of a garden are slow growing cultivars. Over the years they will stay within bounds. They also offer a remarkable variety of form—both symmetrical and irregular, shape--upright, weeping, or cascading, and texture—stiff or soft needle types as well as shiny broadleaved types. Colors vary too, from yellow-green to dark blue-gray. Indeed one can make an entire composition of contrasting dwarf evergreens. But don’t stop with evergreens alone. For other distinctions of texture and form, add compatibly sized deciduous shrubs. Finely divided spireas and potentillas look especially lovely when laden with snow and mixed with small evergreens.

Perennials are the supporting cast
A number of perennials have elegant skeletons that make lovely winter accents often for many months even in heavy snow. This means that they must be spared the ritual fall clean-up; the compulsive among us will need to show some restraint here. Perennials with great skeletons include Echinacea, Rudbeckia, Achillea, Astilbe, especially A. superba

I am also extremely fond of ornamental grasses for winter beauty. Early in the season, until we have a snow to a foot or more, shorter spiky blue fescues look wonderful. And taller grasses like Miscanthus are spectacular for months, usually only succumbing to an especially heavy late March snowfall.

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