Formal shapes for winter

Andrew Staib runs Glorious Gardens, which is a garden design company based in Brighton. Below he talks about the 'bones' of your garden.

As winter approaches and perennials and grasses begin to droop this is a good time to look at the 'bones' of your garden, those formal shapes made from evergreens.

In these pictures we have Viburmum tinus (the lollypop shapes), Buxus, and Rosmary which combine in a musical way to make this area along the outhouse a real focal point all through the winter.

The Rosemary serve to give the heavy bulwark of the box columns in the background a sprightly boost and in between the gaps at ground level are silver catmint that have grown so profusely over the summer they are now just lying around looking beautiful, languid and spent.

So as autumn strips the branches of their leaves, which have fed them sunlight all summer, the evergreen shapes in your garden come into their own.

By the way did you know that scientists have discovered why leaves rustle in the wind? They did a trial experiments where they stilled the movement of leaves and found that they were attacked by hungry insects at a much greater rate than the trees where the leaves were allowed to rustle!

To contact Andrew, email andrewstaibuk@yahoo.co.uk or visit the Glorious Gardens website. Andrew updates his blog every week with beautiful pictures of nature, you can subscribe to the blog via the website.

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