Winter's Rest?

As the garden winds down for winter and summer is now all but a distant memory, it might seem that the gardener's work is done for the year. While its true that the colours may have faded and many plants, particularly the herbaceous perennials, have gone to ground, the winter wonders are coming to life and there is still much to be done in the garden. There is still the odd 'weed' popping up here and there and now is a good time to pull out any naughty plants such as creeping buttercup and ground elder that take the opportunity to run through the open spaces. Its a good time to pop in situ any digitalis that you have grown earlier in pots, especially now you can see the spaces where they can go.

I usually give the buddleia a fairly hard prune at this time of year, it saves it being damaged by the gales, and then again cutting back growth in spring just to stop it becoming to large for the space. But this year I don't plan to cut back any of the dead growth of the perennials, instead I'm going to leave the hollow stems until spring to support hibernating wildlife and also it should help to protect the plant from the harsh winter frosts.

The summer flowerers may be gone but all through the garden the winter performers are starting to make their presence known. The hellebores are beginning to perk up and dotted in between the winter aconites suddenly are visible, well their leaves anyway and the new stems of the muscari are pushing up through the fallen leaves that I've left covering the beds. Soon it will be snowdrops and then daffodils. Even though its only November and we are still technically in autumn, albeit late autumn, there are new buds visible on the rowan tree. You get the feeling that the garden doesn't really sleep in winter, it's simply gathering it's energy and preparing in anticipation for warmer, longer days. Winter may not fully be with us yet, but the garden is moving forward, gathering pace, almost unnoticeable unless you know where to look!