AFTER a month travelling around the US, we came home to a minus 5 degree frost, a miserable five millimetres in the rain gauge and an ecstatic welcome from Wombat, who had missed her walks and insisted on heading out before I even had time to unpack.
Never mind, a frosty walk was a good time to admire the trunks of our avenue of oriental plane trees (Platanus orientalis), which are slowly becoming attractively blotchy.
London planes (P. x acerifolia) also have blotched bark, but their leaves lack autumn colour.
False quince (Pseudocydonia) is another tree with dappled bark in addition to spring blossom, brilliant autumn colour and best of all, fruit.
It’s only drawback is slow growth, my tree has barely reached five metres after 13 years.
July is our coldest month but there was lots to enjoy apart from bark – scented daphne, starry yellow jasmine, pale mauve stylosa irises (I. unguicularis), pearly buds of white japonica and carpets of winter jonquils in cream, gold and white.
Daphne odora is possibly every gardener’s favourite small shrub, having a penetrating, lemony scent exactly when you most need it and being almost indifferent to soil, rainfall and sun or shade.
It has shiny evergreen leaves and a neat shape that needs no pruning apart from picking the flowers, what more could you ask?
It’s only drawback is that being such a winner, especially in midwinter when it’s covered in large, waxy, red and white flowers, nurseries can charge what they like for it and do.
Luckily it grows like a weed from midsummer cuttings kept under a plastic bag, so keep this in mind when garden visiting in July in case you want to beg a branch or two from an obliging garden owner after Christmas.
Daphne odora is possibly every gardener’s favourite small shrub, having a penetrating, lemony scent exactly when you most need it and being almost indifferent to soil, rainfall and sun or shade.
Winter Jasmine (Jasminum nudiflorum) is another winter winner: My shrubs are a mass of starry yellow flowers and I bless the previous owner of this garden who planted it long before we moved here.
Like daphne it will grow almost anywhere, blooms reliably from June to August through frost and drought and needs little pruning.
Its suckers are ideal for covering a dry bank, or you can trim it into a low hedge or train it up a wall. It was brought to England from China by plant hunter Robert Fortune in the mid-19th century and, appropriately for readers of this newspaper, is mentioned by Sissinghurst’s creator, Victoria Sackville-West, in her poem The Land – her “bare green jasmine on a wall … startling the sloth of February” refers to its green stems.
Pale mauve winter irises are natural companions for yellow Jasmine and I was delighted to find my autumn massacre of its grassy leaves had well and truly paid off and thanks to the sun getting into the plants, there were masses of sweet smelling flowers.
Admittedly these don’t look their best poking up from stubble, but there are plenty to pick, which is the main thing.
All gardeners know we can’t have our cake and eat it.
