Add colour, structure and scent with Midwinter stars

LEAVES have fallen; hats and gloves have been tugged on – winter is here, bringing with it the challenges of celebrating and enjoying the chilly landscape. Writers love words and the best for this season is ‘brumal’, from the Latin brumalis. Dating from the early 1500s, it means ‘belonging to winter’; and at this time of year brumal plants are what’s needed to deliver splashes of colour from flower, leaf and stem.

Wintry blooms can take non-gardening folk by surprise. I’m often asked to explain why a cherry is flowering three months early, only to find that it’s actually the winter cherry ‘Autumnalis’. Similarly, daffodils in December are viewed with suspicion, seen as symptoms of global