Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    In Your Winter Garden with Plews Garden Design
    In Your Winter Garden with Plews Garden Design
    In Your Winter Garden with Plews Garden Design
    Ebook164 pages1 hour

    In Your Winter Garden with Plews Garden Design

    By Marie Shallcross

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    “In Your Winter Garden with Plews Garden Design” is part of our ‘gardening almanac for the 21st century’ series has seasonal gardening tips, garden design ideas, ‘how to’ hints plus a liberal sprinkling of photographs and original illustrations to help you get more from your autumn garden, whether that's actually doing or just reading about gardens and gardening.

    Contents include:
    The folklore origins of many gardening traditions and festivals
    Essential garden planting and tool care
    Inspiration for winter planting both ornamental and edible
    Why winter isn’t a dead time in the garden
    Preparations for spring planting
    How to get the most out of your garden and enjoy doing so

    Anyone who has read the Plews weekly blog will know the wide range of interests held by the author so will be reassured to know that anecdotes about plant history and folklore appear and the usual quirky comments about gardens and gardeners.

    Added to all this there are plenty of photographs to inspire and amuse; along with some original illustrations.
    Oh, and a glossary to explain some of those odd terms that gardeners use and you have to pretend to understand...
    In short, we’ve aimed to create a book for you to read from cover to cover or dip into as the mood takes you.
    We will, of course, also bring you books for your Spring, Summer and Autumn garden as the seasons change.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMarie Shallcross
    Release dateNov 16, 2012
    ISBN9781301401048
    In Your Winter Garden with Plews Garden Design
    Author

    Marie Shallcross

    I have had many types of garden from a window box to 5 acres with livestock; interested in 'ordinary gardens', biodiversity & most things in between.Now a mother & son partnership, Plews offers garden design only; garden design & garden landscaping; gardening lessons; garden advice and horticultural consultancy; planting designs; maintenance schedules for Letting agents & landlords; light tree work.

    Related to In Your Winter Garden with Plews Garden Design

    Related ebooks

    Gardening For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Myths And Legends Of Cock Robin

      Dec 6, 2022

      This extract from AG 20 December 1975 looks at some of the stories surrounding the robin ALMOST all British gardeners are familiar with robins. These are perhaps the best known of our resident birds, enjoying the company of human beings and demonstra

      5 min read

    • Article

      Bursting With Life

      Dec 14, 2022

      Bursting With Life
      4 min read

    • Article

      Mistletoe Magic

      Dec 7, 2022

      I REMEMBER ATTENDING a farming conference years ago and listening to an American woman speaking about her business growing organic vegetables on the Mornington Peninsula. She was despairing at the debacle of finding Christmas right in the middle of s

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Season

      Sep 6, 2020

      The Season
      4 min read

    • Article

      November …in The Moment

      Oct 2, 2019

      With one foot firmly in autumn, and a forward glance towards Christmas festivities, November brings with it a natural lull in proceedings to hunker down and revel in the cosy mid-season pause. Shorter days and longer evenings offer ample opportunity

      5 min read

    • Article

      November 2022

      Aug 16, 2022

      The November birth flower is the chrysanthemum, a symbol of longevity, fidelity, joy and optimism. Zodiac signs: Scorpios (Oct 24 – Nov 21), the last water sign of the zodiac, are determined and fierce, while Sagittarius (Nov 23 – Dec 21) are inquisi

      8 min read

    • Article

      A Winter Warmer

      Nov 4, 2022

      A Winter Warmer
      4 min read

    • Article

      A gardener’s Christmas

      Dec 15, 2021

      WHEN other workers are switching off their computers on the 20-something-th of December, slipping on their coats and, after knocking back a festive bevvy with colleagues, heading home through streets of winter rain to John Betjeman’s ‘pigeon-haunted

      3 min read

    • Article

      Ellie Harrison

      Oct 20, 2022

      Ellie Harrison
      2 min read

    • Article

      I’m Berry Fond Of You

      Nov 29, 2023

      I’m Berry Fond Of You
      2 min read

    • Article

      Dark Days Are Coming

      Oct 29, 2019

      Dark Days Are Coming
      4 min read

    • Article

      A Gardener’s Miscellany

      Mar 16, 2021

      This week we’re: Fascinating facts about pretty ornamental sage RED, white and blue – the colours of the Union Jack – were the most frequently seen shades found in British summer flowerbeds during the 1950s and 1960s. Our parents and grandparents gre

      5 min read

    • Article

      Joy Within Beech

      Feb 24, 2022

      Joy Within Beech
      6 min read

    • Article

      A gardener’s MISCELLANY

      Nov 22, 2022

      This week it’s: Life’s a beech for these beautiful trees WHEN it comes to trees, I cannot praise the common beech (Fagus sylvatica) highly enough. It is not suited to most gardens, of course, because it grows humongous, but in the wider landscape, pa

      5 min read

    • Article

      Trunk Routes

      Nov 26, 2020

      THERE OFTEN SEEMS to be something oddly derisive, if not downright divisive, about national such-and-such days or this-and-that weeks, and the botanically themed of these calendrical interlopers are no exception. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for promo

      3 min read

    • Article

      Ellie Harrison

      Nov 17, 2022

      Ellie Harrison
      2 min read

    • Article

      The Season

      Sep 2, 2021

      The Season
      5 min read

    • Article

      December 2023

      Aug 14, 2023

      2 It’s World Pollution Prevention Day, and now is the time to discuss clean air. There are many things we can do to reduce our footprint on the environment, such as: choosing alternative energy sources like solar and wind, buying food locally to cut

      6 min read

    • Article

      Happy History Holidays

      Dec 5, 2019

      Happy History Holidays
      8 min read

    • Article

      A Gardener’s Miscellany

      Nov 16, 2021

      This week it’s: Plants that come into their own during winter IN most gardens, evergreens are limited to shrubs such as camellias, azaleas, laurels and box, but there are so many others out there. Some evergreens produce stunning flowers as well, whi

      4 min read

    • Article

      Mistletoe & Vine

      Nov 2, 2023

      Mistletoe & Vine
      3 min read

    • Article

      This Week It’s: Easter Connections

      Mar 30, 2021

      THIS is Easter time and, for the majority of us, our thoughts will turn to chocolate eggs, bunnies, bonnets, yellow chicks and having two days off work. For gardeners, there are plant connections to all of these. But Easter week is, of course, far mo

      4 min read

    • Article

      SPARKLE With The Stars

      Nov 12, 2020

      SPARKLE With The Stars
      3 min read

    • Article

      We Adore THE BIG Freeze

      Jan 7, 2021

      We Adore THE BIG Freeze
      7 min read

    • Article

      Deck The Halls With… Spiders’ Cobwebs?

      Dec 15, 2021

      ONE winter, my mother announced that we were to have a ‘Victorian Christmas’. I eyed my sisters warily, wondering what this was to entail. A Victorian Christmas, it turned out, meant replacing our gaudy Woolworths tinsel and glitter-covered ping-pong

      3 min read

    • Article

      In Your Garden

      Oct 29, 2021

      In Your Garden
      2 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for In Your Winter Garden with Plews Garden Design

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      In Your Winter Garden with Plews Garden Design - Marie Shallcross

      This book is dedicated to my mother for providing me with my early gardening inspiration; and also to Eowyn, canine garden companion.

      May they both rest in peace.

      Eowyn in the garden

      Copyright Notice

      In Your Winter Garden with Plews Garden Design

      Copyright © 2012 Marie Shallcross

      Illustrations Copyright © 2012 Lucy Waterfield

      Photography Copyright © 2012 Plews Garden Design

      Plews Garden Design

      Smashwords edition

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author

      Contents:

      Dedication

      Copyright notice

      Introduction

      Yule

      Bare root beauties

      Plants: Ornamental Trees

      Pruning

      That time of year again - Christmas trees and alternatives

      Plants: Ornamental Evergreens

      Magic Mistletoe

      Greenhouses

      Plants: Ornamental Flowering

      Plants: Edible

      Frost and Snow

      Worms, Soil and Compost

      Plants: Ornamental: a Delight for the nose

      Wildlife, pets and other animals

      In the Potting Shed: Excuses to be ‘in the Warm’ and Sundry Garden Tasks

      Excuses to be in the Shed: Caring for Hand Tools

      Excuses to be in the Shed: Caring for Power Tools

      Lupercalia and Valentines

      Ending and Beginnings

      About the author and Plews Garden Design

      Glossary

      In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,

      Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;

      Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,

      In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

      Christina Rossetti

      Introduction

      In the bleak midwinter...or maybe not so bleak and full of nothing for underneath the ground lies the promise of spring in sleeping bulbs and above the ground frost turns seed heads into diamante jewels that sparkle in the low rays of sunshine.

      Another garden designer once told me that a winter garden has to work harder to succeed in looking good. I know what he meant; it is easy to overwhelm the senses with summer borders bursting with colour and scent. The winter garden by contrast is more subtle, more monochromatic; well usually; the sudden spark of purple Callicarpa berries only emphasises the restful tones around it.

      The trick is not to yearn for summer but to relish the delights of winter; each season has its own rhythm; tasks to perform; scents to savour. Time always passes more swiftly when you’re enjoying yourself. Our hope is that this garden Almanac for the 21st century will help you enjoy your winter garden and while away the long winter nights...

      Now is the solstice of the year.

      Join together beneath the mistletoe

      By the holy oak where it grows.

      Seven druids dance in seven time. Ring solstice bells.

      Ian Anderson

      Yule, the Winter Solstice, and other related Christmas matters

      The winter solstice of Yule is of course a northern hemisphere festival. In the southern hemisphere, Yule takes place at midsummer not midwinter.

      The winter solstice celebrates the longest night of the year and the rebirth of the sun. For our ancestors it was a time of hope and a cause for festivity. Evergreens and mistletoe were used for decoration as they reflected the eternity of the gods, being ever young (or ever-green). It was an excuse for a ‘knees up’ in the cold, dark part of the year.

      Winter solstice: shortest day; longest night...useful fact: some plants respond to day length and some to warmth to stimulate growth. Strictly speaking it’s not so much day length, as length of absence of day, i.e. how many hours of darkness there are. Plants grow when they sleep, just like humans.

      The Yule log of medieval times was a continuation of this tradition. A huge trunk rather than a small log, it would be chosen from among the oldest trees, preferably ash. It would be dragged back to the hearth and lit with a sliver of the previous year’s log, which had been kept especially for this purpose. It would then be kept burning throughout the yuletide season, more christianly known as the Twelve Days of Christmas.

      Many of the plants we still think of as being part of Christmas festivities relate to these older traditions – holly and ivy are both evergreens, pine – as a decoration or burnt as incense.

      Holly variegated

      The Anglo Saxon calendar in the eighth century called the modern December and January geola or giuli, from which we probably derive ‘Yule’.

      Many of the northern European and north American Christmas activities hark back to the early Christian rites or even earlier, when the Oak king would fight the Holly King and win the favours of the Goddess until the summer solstice.

      It is perhaps worth mentioning that for much of recorded history everyone, even those who lived in the towns, were aware of the changing seasons and the effect this had on the food supply. There were or very few no street lights until an hundred or so years ago; at night the light was from the moon and the stars, so long nights were very noticeable.

      For most people food was not in short supply until after Yule, as February is a notoriously cruel month, for it is then that the stocks of food for both humans and animals became low and there was little to be gathered from the hedgerow. There would be brassicas, such as cabbages and winter kale; stored root vegetables, like carrots and turnips; and preserved food, dried, salted or smoked.

      Meat was not as large a part of the average diet as it generally is today; people would have kept chickens, shared a pig but animals need feeding too,

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1