Design Your Garden for Winter (not spring): Beauty All Year

Best epiphany about the garden in winter?  Designing the garden for winter is superior to other seasons.  A garden beautiful in February is beautiful all year.
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Rosemary Verey's book, The Garden in Winter, is your source for this epiphany if you're in a bit of doubt.
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In addition to winter being the best season to create a Garden Design, another realm is included, simplicity.  Into those realms, considered micro, is the full blown macro garden in winter.  Your life. 
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Winter's pace is meant to be.  Winter's events in the garden are meant to be.  Pining for the glories of spring in winter?  Not me, never have.  Winter is deep strength in the garden.  A season controlling how we dress, our circadian cycle, our activity levels, and what the activities are, and more.



Pic, above, here.

At the front end, I knew Garden Design, below, was not for me, my station in life.  Middle class, subdivision, working for a living.  Ten good staff, but they are all on my own hands.  Could not have been more wrong.  Instead of seeing the Garden Design, below, I saw station-in-life.  Guess what else I didn't see, below, at the front end?  Yep, the garden in winter, how to design her. 
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Pic, above, here.
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Now, this is what I know, below.  Garden Design does not vary for station in life, it varies by your intensity of perception, whispering the details, taking them for your own.  In the taking, lives are born.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Garden design, both pics, above, are the same.  Both pics are a complete garden design class for the garden in winter.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Studying historic gardens across the globe for decades, I've been into many art museums in different countries too.  Having the art of Providence, above, in my own garden?  Priceless.  Finding these scenes upon a winter's day, a casual walk/perusal, makes time disappear.  Timelessness of other realms become the reality, the unconscious begins its serious work of creativity, grace, joy, peace, putting connections together. 
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Pic, above, here.

If you don't have a garden work area yet, put thought to it in winter.

 
Pic, above, here.
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The garden in winter is inside your home too.  Mainly from the views looking out, which is where every garden begins.  Bring the garden inside physically, all year, especially in winter.

 
Pic, above, here.
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What shrubs for your zone with bare stems in winter will bud/open when cut & brought inside?  Don't know?  Contact your local Extension Service, etc.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Bulbs usually go on sale in winter, cheap/easy to pot.  Adore this grow box, below, never seen one before.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Bringing a few plants inside for winter, below.  Finally, have done this for myself this year.  Take heart, I'm 30 years into it.  Life was never conducive to interior plants, took the plunge in December.
Discovered a trick, not pleasant at first, about a winter's interior plant table.
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Found at local thrift store for a song, that table, when I moved into my house 2.5 years ago, was stowed with the cats in a back room.  A few fur balls later, the table had a bad side.  No problem, brought table out and put that side next to a wall.
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Life conspired further, work travel.  My pet sitter, cats/chickens, is the best.  But adding topiaries to her duties did not seem polite.  Pulled a leaf up on the mahogany table, placed copper trays filled with water, from Smith/Hawken, for humidity, watered pots/foliage, left for over a week. 
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All was great with chicks/cats and topiaries.  Alas the mahogany dropleaf table.  Unpleasant to be honest, but I've ruined the table.  Took a couple of days to get over the fact of ruining a good piece of furniture.  Get over it I did !
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Whoever gets the table after me, has the choice to keep using it roughly, or refinish.  It's solid, no veneer.  Until then, I have a fabulous interior winter plant table.  Then I noticed other winter plant tables, below, and they are spotted just the same as mine.  On trend, go me.         

 
Pic, above, here.
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Bringing plants inside for winter, below, pay attention to their containers.  I found almost the exact wood container, below, about 3 years ago.  Bought it as a gift for a friend, she brings plants inside.  Then I moved, who knew where that planter went.  Once my topiary order arrived last December I rummaged through the basement.  Found that container, below.  Now it's mine, no thought of giving it away.  Found a classic antique plant stand for it at an estate sale last month too.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Your interior plants don't need to be repotted if you have a variety of soup tureens, clay pots, baskets, other weird containers, to slip them into, below. 
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Soup tureens with a crack or chip are easy to find, and cheap.  Perfect for interior plants.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Bunny Mellon is famous for her topiary use inside, below, all year.  Discovered recently she liked the idea of topiaries after seeing them in ancient Roman artwork.  I've copied her, topiaries, below, are a copy of her, and next maybe you.


Pic, above, here.
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The garden in winter, at its best, below.  How many years have I done these, but outside on my winter patio?  Decades.  Better, branches are easy to procure, free.


Pic, above, here.
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The garden in winter, below.  The pot could be black plastic from the nursery.  Doesn't matter.  Wicker goes with everything. 

 
Pic, above, here.
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Have found several of these containers, below, at thrift stores thru the years.  Line with plastic, add soil, poke a few holes, plant the bulbs.  Done.  Stagger planting times, leave outside, bring inside when started to grow, or skip the outside part.  Don't overthink. 

 
Pic, above, here.
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Perhaps the least understood garden design, for me, at the front end, below.  Glad through-a-glass-darkly became clear.  It's about all year beauty, ease of management, living life in the garden, not living life having to work in the garden. 

 
Pic, above, here.
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Giving a Garden in Winter talk tomorrow, handout, below.  Pay no attention to the plants, it's for our zone 8a.  Plants are first on the handout, yet the most important Garden in Winter facts are at the bottom.  It's all about the Garden Design.
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Have a lovely powerpoint to go with it. 
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It's in a historic church 1 county over.  A large group, and active.  More than gardening, this group is proactive politically, historically, conservation, agriculturally, planning/zoning, and etc.  It's amazing what you learn at Garden Club.  If you think it's all about gardening, it's not.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T

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                                                   Beautiful garden, beautiful life.             ******************************************************

                THE GARDEN IN WINTER

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COPYRIGHT 2018  BY TARA DILLARD

PERENNIALS

Carex                                Vinca minor

Rosemary                          Thrift

Thyme                                Dianthus ‘Bath Pink’

Saxifraga stolonifera         Helleborus

Liriope                               Mondo

Christmas Fern

TREES

Prunus mume

Contorted Filbert                     Cryptomeria

Chimonanthus praecox           Crape myrtle

Acer griseum                           Magnolia

Corylopsis glabrescens             Holly

Hamamelis                               Conifers

Tea Olive

SHRUBS

Camellia             Sarcoccoca      Aspidistra       Lonicera fragrantissima

Daphne               Pieris               Skimmia         Boxwood

Quince                Edgeworthia   Anise                Aucuba

Holly                   Kerria             Hydrangea       Azalea

Scotch broom      Plum Yew      Yew                                    

VINES                                 BULBS

Carolina jessamine               Crocus             Winter aconite    Colchicum luteum   Snowdrops

Evergreen clematis               Scilla sibirica     Grape hyacinth     Iris reticulata     Anemone blanda

Jasmine ‘Madison’

DESIGN:  Know What’s Important

Axis                    Trees                    Color             Texture      Photograph/Feb    

Focal Points        Hedges                 Silhouettes   Fragrance   Ruined Table

Paths                   Groundcovers      Line               Rooms       Vanishing Threshold

The Garden In Winter, by Rosemary Verey,  Beautiful By Design, by Tara Dillard

A Southern Garden, by Elizabeth Lawrence ,  The Garden View, by Tara Dillard