Out and about
Ursula Buchan
It is one of the sourer ironies of gardening life that we have the most time to do things in the garden when there is least to do. This relatively hard winter, although a huge relief because it has resurrected the almost forgotten notion that winters can be cold and also snowy, has proved extremely trying to restless souls like mine. Faced with the delivery of a number of bare-rooted trees which needed to go into the ground whilst dormant, I have been forced (note the subtle, Mandelsonian use of the passive tense to cast myself as victim) to break some iron horticultural rules. In particular, I have dug over and buried partly frosted soil, which may thus remain frozen until the spring, and I have trodden on this clay, when sodden, in the process squeezing out air and threatening the life of the roots I have just taken care to insert in the ground.
When not seriously undermining the structure of my soil, I have been pruning everything which could conceivably require it, and quite a lot which could not. Little has entirely escaped my secateurs. Let us hope that none of my carefully thinned-out shrubs take this as a call to arms and break into leaf early, only to have their young growth frosted in early spring. In this state of mind, it is only strict, hard-learned discipline which has saved me from that most cardinal of sins, pruning a plum tree in winter. Even I, deaf to reason as I am in this fidgety mood, could not contemplate risking 'plum silver leaf', a fungal pathogen which enters through cuts made at this time of year.
On the last Sunday in January, even I had to admit defeat. so I set off in sunny weather on the two-hour drive to Albrighton, near Wolverhampton, to see a garden called Swallow Hayes, which is home to one of the National Collections of Hamamelis (witch-hazel) and which was open to visitors for the day. As I drew level with Fort Dunlop, the fog rolled in and Stayed rolled. Gardens which open their gates in January always run the risk of a day of ineffable dreariness, when no prospect pleases, nothing looks at its best, and the lawn becomes so badly scuffed-up that it takes months to repair.
However, not only did the witch-hazels, which flower in January and February before their leaves appear, look quite unabashed by the awful weather, their bright cheerfulness was, in fact, enhanced both by leaden skies and by the backcloth of mature evergreen trees and shrubs. The only slight blot was that the sodden conditions and cold mist did nothing for the fragrance of these highly scented shrubs, which normally exhale a strong and spicy fruitiness into still air. Only the real betters like Hamamelis x intermedia 'Diane', H. pallida and the rare 'Wells Form' were able to rise above the conditions.
Almost all witch-hazels naturally make a kind of fluted vase shape, so they need some space in which to work their magic. Because their twisted, spidery, yellow, orange or mahogany-red flowers are held on naked branches, they look best with a solid ground covering, say of ivies or heathers, and a dark background to prevent those flowers melting unremarked into the distance.
This garden eloquently, if mutely, underlines the importance of evergreens for the winter garden. They can drip depressingly at times, especially if they have large, solid leaves, but they are essential for some sense of enclosure as well as for muted, sober colour, when deciduous trees and shrubs generally have little to offer. It is not only what they are, but also what they can do for other plants. I am not suggesting that people plant conifers if they dislike them, although not all are inherently dislikeable, only used in dislikeable ways. But there are also a number of evergreen shrubs which flower at this time of year — camellias, Rhododendron praecox, Daphne bholua and D. odora, mahonias, sarcococcas, Viburnum tinus 'Eve Price' and 'Gwentlian' — and there are also dozens of neat, small-leaved evergreens, which don't drip badly, such as Osmanthus, Pittospo rum, Berberis and Clematis ciirhosa balearica.
I came away from this garden thinking that I had had far more fun in the fog than I would have done if I had stayed in my sunny garden, trailing round trying to find something constructive to do. As my children never tire of telling me, I should stop being such a sad gardening person and get out more.
Swallow Hayes has several Open Days and is also open by appointment (01902 372624). See Shropshire entry of the National Gardens Scheme 'Yellow Book' and the NCCPG's National Plant Collections Directory
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