Frost and Ice

"I prefer Winter and Fall, when you feel the

bone structure of the landscape...

something waits beneath it, the whole

story doesn't show"  -  Andrew Wyeth

An icy north-easterly blows over our hills and valleys, exposing the limestone carapace of an ancient land. This is a favourite part of our village, or commune, where we regularly go walking and bird-watching.  In summer these hills are painted yellow with sunflowers; occasionally in winter the Gironde Estuary floods right up the valley where you can see it shaded in green.

Vineyard on the banks of the Gironde

But this is also a land of venerable vines, particularly on the other side of the estuary where some of the finest Bordeaux vineyards are situated.

These vines are sleeping now, having been given a good prune by our neighbours and the other seasonal workers who are out in all weathers, muffled up against the elements. They are the real heroes of the wine industry, who we silently salute each time we raise a glass of our local red!

Although the wind-chill can be cruel, and gales can wreak havoc in the garden, we get little in the way of snowfall.  A light dusting the other day got me up early with my camera but it was all gone by lunchtime.

Sometimes the temperature can start below freezing and climb fifteen degrees during the course of a morning so you can be sunbathing in a sheltered spot by afternoon.

Palms on a roundabout

You'd think it would be difficult for mediterranean-type plants to cope with these fluctuations but many of them, like these date palms in Royan, don't get wrapped up for winter and seem to survive quite happily, helped by their proximity to the sea. 

Plants kept in pots are at greater risk of having their roots frozen and it's always important to make sure that your soil is free-draining - those lumps of chalk in our earth are actually quite handy!

Helleborus niger

Hellebores are coming back to life now, unfurling their glossy toothed leaves and opening greeny-pink buds to disclose their secretive, downturned flowers.

Ours have been interbreeding for a few years, producing endless variations on a theme of green and maroon, some having more pronounced stippling on their petals and some with beautifully contrasting stamens.

It's well worth picking a few blooms so that you can admire them up close in a vase.

Daphne odora with twigs of Cornus 

Having said that, we've been enjoying small selections of Daphne on the dining table in recent days.

At the end of January she starts proffering her scent-laden blooms and carries on flowering through February when there's precious little to enjoy in our shady back border.

Cornus alba or Dogwood is also a useful shrub in the garden at this time of year when its bright stems really light up a border.  Its flowers are inconspicuous but the stems come in various shades of red or yellow depending on variety and need to be cut down in spring so that new, colourful growth will grow back in time for next winter.

Salix alba as garden sculpture

Dogwoods are similar to the willow trees (Salix alba) which we have growing in marshy areas and along river banks. They, too, need to be pruned hard to encourage new stems and the offcuts can be used to make hedging as they root so easily in damp soil.

Where the offcuts are a good length they can be planted and interwoven, as illustrated here by a willow-arbour which was created last year in our friends' garden.  (I've yet to see this one in leaf but will try to get another photograph in summer to show how it develops.)

Viburnum tinus - handsome and versatile

Shrub of the Month
Viburnum tinus

This is an evergreen which thrives in the shady border and which we've used to partially obscure our plastic water-butt. Recently we've also planted it as a low hedge down the back lane and it is dense enough to give privacy whilst also providing attractive flowers in winter.

Here it's being grown as a specimen shrub in a French garden: allowed to develop without much pruning, it nevertheless shows off a lovely array of pink buds opening into white starry flowers which contrast with the glossy foliage.

Caro in the cottage garden - April 2003

Down memory lane...

Going through my photo archive recently, I came across a few pictures of the garden as it was when we first arrived here over ten years ago.

I thought it might be interesting to show what we decided to keep and how it has matured during that time.

In this photo it is only the mulberry tree which remains, although you can see that its trunk is much sturdier now.

We enlarged the bed around it and underplanted with creeping thyme (on the left) and a mixture of bulbs and perennials, interspersed with grasses to add movement.

The mulberry provides a good shade canopy in summer, so the trick is to grow things which can survive in hot, dry and shadowy conditions ... not an easy combination!

As it's the garden for our lettings property, we wanted to have plenty of colour without too much maintenance. Gone are the floribunda roses - and numerous hollyhocks, which flourish elsewhere in the garden.

Certain things like this nemesia (or is it diascia?) came in a pot from the UK and we used it as edging because the pink flowers smelt of vanilla. It has continued to grow and seed itself ever since, being a perennial in this climate.

Californian poppies and cerinthe also seed themselves liberally in this bed. Other perennials here include salvia microphylla, verbascum, lavender and geum.

If anything, the sandy soil in this part of the garden is a bit too fertile and now is the time when we spend a back-breaking hour or two removing as many weeds as possible before all the bulbs come up. It's time well spent, even on a cold day when you can manage a mere twenty minutes before rushing inside for a nose-blow and a hot cuppa!