Waking up to discover the garden transformed by a short, sharp hoar frost is a magical experience. Tiffany Daneff looks at how to make the most of it, and shares five of the best to visit over the holiday period.
Even before drawing back the curtains on a frosty morning, there’s a sense of stillness. The burr of a car on the lane, normally a background noise, comes through in full stereo: all senses are heightened. Before the sun is fully up, dark shapes of corvids and pigeons cross the window — not the usual morning’s rackety chaos from the rookery, but single outliers slowly testing the cold, clear air. Finally, as the sun tops the bare, silhouetted trees, the scene comes to life.
Dogs and children can’t wait to get outside, trailing the frosted lawn with their prints. Tall stems glitter in the pale sun and wind-blown piles of leaves are rimed with white. Gardeners wipe away the condensation and peer through the window. How hard is this frost? Has it frozen the ground? Was everything that needs protection swaddled last night?
Two winters ago, hard frost persisted for many nights across the country with temperatures down to -10˚C or lower in some rural areas and, as the treacherous thaw came days later, many gardens had losses. Daphnes and ceanothus were hit hard, their roots unable to withstand the persistent damp freeze.
Garden owners could hardly bring themselves to find any beauty in the endless cold destruction and yet… To hear the grass crunch underfoot as light makes individual blades sparkle like diamonds, to see close up an iced spider’s web or brittle stems covered with spines of frost is to be tipped back into that childhood wonder when one saw these things for the first time. There is a magic in the way that the ice furs the stems and preserves a single rose. Can this be real?
Ice queens: hoar frost highlights the veining on a leaf of Gunnera manicata, the giant rhubarb. Credit: Jonathan Buckley
A short, sharp hoar frost — which occurs when ice crystals form in humid air — usually appears overnight and most often has disappeared by midday. Such evanescence will bring a smile, as long as an early-autumn freeze doesn’t reduce the last standing dahlias to slush or a devastating early-spring frost doesn’t kill the early-flowering fruit blossom.
It is in frost — rather than snow, which simply suffocates everything in formless mounds — that the underlying structure of a garden really matters. Without the flighty distractions of colour, evergreen hedges sing out. Topiary hits the top notes. Whether describing formal lines or a green geometry of spheres and cubes, dramatically shaped into a fantasy of twists and spirals or snipped into peacocks, doves and imaginary beasts, the sharp, clipped forms are best finished with a dusting of powdery frost.
Frost on seedheads of Eryngium agavifolium. Credit: Jonathan Buckley
The sculptural skeletons of still standing seedheads come into their own now. In warmer, wetter winters, they’re soon reduced to a pulpy mass. At Great Dixter in East Sussex, Christopher Lloyd particularly loved seeing the light shine through cultivars of Miscanthus sinensis: ‘Best and most persistent of the lot, however, are the clustered stair-rods of Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’. They are pale and luminous even in the darkest weather.’
Five of the best gardens to visit in winter in Britain
John’s Garden at Ashwood Nurseries, Kingswinford, West Midlands
Encompasses eight acres, filled with interest year round. Planted by the nursery’s owner John Massey, Victoria Medal of Honour and Chelsea Gold medallist, it is an excellent place for hellebores and early bulbs. Open on Saturdays only; closed in January.
01384 401996; www.ashwoodnurseries.com
Brodsworth Hall Gardens, Doncaster, South Yorkshire
An extensive collection of historic topiary, as well as an impressive rock garden. Open at weekends and selected week days in winter.
01302 722598; www.english-heritage.org.uk
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Pensthorpe Nature Reserve, Fakenham, Norfolk
Features a Millennium Garden by Piet Oudolf, as well as wetlands and a sculpture garden — plus bird hides, of course — laid out within its 700 acres.
01328 851465; www.pensthorpe.com
Thenford Arboretum, Northamptonshire
Opens early in the year for its famous snowdrop collection. Across its 70-acre landscaped garden, Michael Heseltine has planted important collections of more than 3,000 trees and shrubs, too, within which are dotted dozens of sculptures. Early booking is essential.
www.thenfordarboretum.com
Westcroft, Wiltshire
The first garden in the year to open for the National Garden Scheme, with a collection of more than 400 snowdrops displayed in a much-loved garden spread over two-thirds of an acre.
www.ngs.org.uk
