The lighter side of winter
“February can be gloriously illuminated by the jewel-like intensity of bulbs planted now, such as irises, daffodils, scillas and muscari”
By mid-November, Longmeadow is starting to dissolve into a brown and green blur. Mud makes all grass slippery and treacherous, and rain turns the paths to ice rinks. We long for cold, bright days as much for the dryness they bring as the rare glimpse of sun. But we don’t stop gardening and the garden doesn’t stop offering the occasional delight, albeit in rarer glimpses.
The Grass Borders can still look magnificent as they fade and any green structure comes into its own (albeit much less now that box blight has drastically reduced our evergreen hedges). It all needs a lift, however, to cheer on the spirits in what is, for me at least, the dankest, darkest time of year.
“Planting tulips is one of my favourite jobs and
