Banish the blues

Toby explains how creating cold-weather beauty went from unusual to must-do

At a time when much of the garden sleeps, winter flowers are all the more precious for their scarcity; an irrepressible bunch, undaunted by wind, frost or even a blanket of snow. Many are small, yet t

Emily Chandler, National Trust head gardener at Dunham Massey in Cheshire, on gardening in the cold and the best flowers for winter scent

These elite seasonal performers really ‘do what they say on the tin’!

Just between us, let’s be honest: for much of the year this is quite an uninteresting plant. It does not make much of an impact while our gardens erupt with life in spring. In the heat of summer, it s

When I entered the world of snowdrops over 30 years ago, I quickly came into contact with some formidable female galanthophiles. They often wore hats and they nearly always had a silver snowdrop brooc