Prompted by a friend’s account of her visit to Wakehurst Place in December I finally made it out to the High Weald of West Sussex. I’d gone primarily to see the Winter Garden, but as it was my first visit I also walked quite a long way round the very hilly parkland.

The winter garden viewed from the croquet lawn

Wakehurst is owned by the National Trust (free entry if you’re a member) but run by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. It is home to the Millenium Seed Bank which is also managed by Kew. There’s a 16th century mansion (currently closed for renovations) and nearly 500 acres of gardens and parkland.

Betula utilis jacquemontii and Cornus sanguinea Midwinter Fire

The Winter Garden was renovated and replanted four years ago and is the main reason for visiting at this time of year. So what exactly is a winter garden I hear you ask? It’s a term that’s been in use since the 19th century in Britain, most often applying to large glass houses designed for music and entertainment. Often these were located in cities usually visited in winter, like Bath, Brighton and Harrogate.

Cornus alba Sibirica and Phlomis russelliana

These gardens fell into disrepair with WW1. Winter gardens became more associated with the use of trees with coloured and decorative bark like birches, Japanese maples and cherries. By the middle of the 20th century notable gardeners were using plants with coloured stems like dogwoods and willows.

The first garden designed with winter in mind was made at the Cambridge University Botanic Garden in the early 1950s. Winter gardens were also being developed in France at roughly the same time.

Designers of winter gardens tend to focus on form, scent and colour. The form is provided by structural evergreens like yew, Skimmia, Mahonia and the bare shapes of deciduous trees. Scent is surprisingly easy to find in winter gardens from flowers like Daphne, Sarcococca and Hamamelis. Many trees have colourful bark like Betula utilis var jacquemontii and plant stems like Cornus sanguinea Midwinter Fire and Salix alba Yelverton become brighter with colder weather.

Add in some early bulbs like snowdrops and ground cover like cyclamen, et voila, a winter garden…

Calamagrostis x acutiflora Karl Foerster and Vibunum davidii

If it was that easy everyone would have one, right? I think this is why most people only get as far as one or two Hellebores and maybe some snowdrops.

Many of the plants that feature in winter gardens are associated with woodland or woodland edges. This means they depend on quite a lot of light early in the year (before tree canopies close over with leaves). Sun also highlights the bright colours of leaves and stems when they are backlit, so a dark shady corner is not going to give you the best winter winter garden.

However, some winter garden plants like Yew, Sarcoccoca and Mahonia don’t mind a bit of shade so all is not lost if that’s the only space you’ve got.

More important is to make your winter garden accessible in winter. The delicate scents of winter flowers like Daphne and Chimonanthus are only noticeable on still days and you will want to get close up without getting covered in mud.

Winter gardens are becoming a popular way of attracting visitors at an otherwise quiet time of year so there’s no shortage of them.

Mottisfont Abbey, Hampshire

Sir Harold Hillier Garden, Hampshire

Angelsey Abbey, Norfolk

Harlow Carr, Yorkshire

I’m afraid it was the usual sort of mass catering on offer. They’d run out of sausage rolls but at least the flat white was good.