Trees for Structure and Shadows

Trees are king of most gardens. They are usually the tallest and bulkiest structural vegetation. Giving visual strength and permanence to plantings through the year. They also offer shade, screening and shelter.

In the winter, with most herbaceous perennials dying down, they have an even  stronger role. For  however seductive the scent of all those winter flowering shrubs, a walk round the winter garden is enhanced by trees. Think strong trunks, tactile bark and an interesting branching structure.

And the well trained landscape designer /garden designer knows the trees to use in whichever soil, situation or microclimate they find themselves working.

But while garden writers talk of their shade, hardly anyone every mentions the attractiveness of their shadows in the garden.

Now, this may seem irrelevant and may well be too much information, but my sleeping pattern has become terrible. I often go to bed between midnight and 1, wake at 3, work till 7. If there are no appointments I might sleep till 11, walk, work till 3, sleep till 5 and then be awake or work until 12 0r 1.

Only hearing about the historic nature of  segmented sleep has stopped me from worrying about this rather odd existence. In the dead of this winter on gloomy days I have seen very little daylight. Young Lesley has been making loaded comments about Dracula!

My point in telling you this is that the other day I woke, almost half way through the day, and rather disorientatedly took a walk in the suddenly sunlit world of my local park:   Ashton Court Estate.

 

After the days of endless gloom which we have all suffered the quality of the light was amazing. Given the low angle of the winter sun it was even blinding.

Rather ungratefully, seeking less harsh light (you see it is Dracula again) I walked to the trees to the left of the mansion and found myself in this entrancing world of shadows.

Of course evergreens are useful structure in the winter garden and at any other season for that matter, but their shade is mostly a dense, amorphous mass. Whereas the interstices between the winter branches of deciduous trees can often give you a striking ground pattern.

Walking this way or that along this pattern might be almost a life changing decision. It felt that dramatic!

Only the presence of a strident lady dog walker with some very naughty dogs called Alex and Dusty, stopped me from walking like a child along the dark pathways over the lime green of the grass.

R