Unusual Winter plants

It may seem a bit strange, thinking and planning for your winter garden whilst still thinking about your summer holidays, but now is the time to plan how your garden will look during those grey dreary days when few plants are in flower. I suppose, considering that you plan your summer holiday just after Christmas it’s not so strange!

Winter is the time when your ‘architectural’ plants come into their own (that is those plants which are grown for their size and shape as well , or instead of, their flowers. One of the more unusual ones is Bamboo – Phyllostachys Nigra or Oriental Black Bamboo

Black Bamboo, unlike many other Bamboos, does not run. That is it stays in clumps and does not try to take over the whole of your garden. Many Bamboos will suddenly appear some way away from where you planted it having sent out running roots. It is a real pain to keep under control. Black Bamboo is very well behaved. It can grow quite large (10ft tall and 10ft spread) but it will stay where it’s planted. Whats more, if you so desire, you can grow it in a very large pot or a half barrel. That may ‘bonsai’ it, i.e. make it grow slightly smaller. It is evergreen but it is really the black stems that you are growing it for and these look stunning in the weak winter sunshine or even with the frost clinging to them.

The other plants I want to mention are becoming more popular but are none the less  useful plans, that is the Hellebores.

Thompson and Morgan are selling double hellebores from the Washfield Collection and make a good addition to your garden as they flower during winter (they are not called ‘Christmas Rose’ for no reason.) and they keep their leaves – which in themselves are quite pretty, all year.

It is useful to keep a small patch of  ground somewhere hidden away which you can use as a nursery bed – that is a bed where you grow plants on until they are the right size to plant out or until the place you want them is free. You often need to do this with ‘bi-annuals’ (plants which you sow one year but do not flower until the year after). You don’t want these taking up space in you flower borders for 18 months whilst they are growing. so you sow them in spring, grow them on in a nursery bed and plant them in their final place in autumn, ready to flower the next year.