A garden you can use in February
Most gardens are judged in June. The harder and more useful question is whether a garden is worth walking into on a grey afternoon in February.
Designing for the whole year is mostly about structure and comfort rather than flowers, and it is what turns a garden from a seasonal display into a space that earns its place every month.
Bones you can see in winter
When the herbaceous layer has gone, what is left is the garden: walls, levels, paths, hedges, trees, the shape of the beds. If that reads well in January, everything planted into it is a bonus.
Evergreen structure, clipped or loose, gives the eye something to hold onto, and a few well-placed trees with good bark or branch shape do more in winter than any amount of summer colour.
Things worth leaving standing
Grasses and perennials with strong stems and seed heads hold their shape for months and are at their best under frost. Cutting back late in winter rather than in autumn keeps that interest and leaves insects undisturbed where they are overwintering.
Early bulbs coming up through last year's growth are one of the real pleasures of planting this way.
Surfaces and shelter
A garden is only usable in winter if you can get around it dry-footed and stand somewhere out of the wind. That means well-detailed surfaces that drain and do not get slippery, a sensible route from the door to wherever you are heading, and a sheltered spot facing whatever low sun there is.
Shelter can be planting, a wall, a hedge or a simple structure. Somewhere to put a fire or a heater, if it suits the clients, extends the usable months considerably.
Light and the hours you actually get
In midwinter the garden is dark before most people are home. Modest, warm, well-aimed lighting on the route and one or two focal points makes the space usable and keeps it looking like a garden rather than a car park.
Keeping levels low and switching lights off when nobody is out there is better for the garden's wildlife and better to look at.
Written by George Hughes-Stanton of GHS Spaces, a landscape design practice based in Bristol. See the projects or get in touch.