Hard-pressed to decide which of the four seasons Uptop is most appealing – and in this garden, we have four equal seasons – I might prefer early winter. Before the occasional heavy snow covers almost all, this temporarily beautiful time comes with the accompanying worries about broken branches and damaged evergreen hedges. In late autumn or early winter, a light dusting of snow or heavy frost is sublime, tinting the assembled landscape with a greenish monochromatic painterly tableau, worthy of an Impressionist’s brush – but iPhone camera ready for me.Concerning the garden’s physical beauty, I could be content to live without the heavy snows, pretending my garden rests securely in Zone 8, and that I could be outside tending its needs throughout a green and rainy mild winter, exhibiting Seattle- or London-envy, I suppose. But I also know that a 6 or 8-week blanket of snow, mitigating continual freeze and thaw cycles in January and February, is the best insulator and makes for a happier spring with fewer winter casualties.

Following the final “fall clean-up” in the first week of December, I find the garden positively ravishing. The architect maker of this place can, once again, appreciate his creation as the pure lines they were long-ago drawn, on paper first, then followed by sticks and twine. Fallen leaves now removed and composted, the small turf lawns are Irish green, this ground plane is punctuated by evergreen shrubs, tawny grasses, and small trees. The bare branches (for finally all deciduous leaves have given up their summer perches), reaching 70-feet or more in the adjacent woodland, provide a pleasing juxtaposed backdrop to the emerald carpet. 

A brief word about “putting my garden to bed,” a frequent question even my best friends (non-gardener variety) put to me around Thanksgiving, with the casual comment “I suppose you have by now….” To state defiantly: I never “put to bed” the garden. The tempo changes, the chores – and delights – are different ones, but the garden is awake and alive, not slumbering. Its charms are available to anyone seeking to transcend the cliché of the sleeping winter garden.

An especially appealing combination of winter wheat-colored grasses and evergreen shrubs is reason enough – forgetting for a moment their attractions in summer – to plant the grasses and evergreens in the first place, as they so enhance the winter garden. Why is it so common, especially in public settings, that grasses are chopped to the ground in November? I guess it is part of the “putting the garden to bed” mania. But the loss of such a visual delight – not to mention their role in providing protective habitats for bird and beneficial insect life – is a shame. In fact, some of the large grasses, especially the Miscanthus varieties, should be sheared in half by early July (my “Chelsea Chop” is later than the Brits) to arrest the race toward their late summer flopdum, giving them new vigor and keeping their girth manageable. All the rage now, with a dizzying array of commercially available varieties, these grasses, regardless of their summer color variations, all end up in a light wheat tone for their winter attire. All are equally attractive to me, but perhaps none more than Hakonechloa macra ‘Albo striata,’ a so-called Japanese forest grass, with a slight reddish tint added to the underlying wheat. True to its name, this grass, unlike most others, does well in light shade but also will thrive in a sunny position.

But a monotone of green and wheat, appealing as it is to me, is not everyone’s idea of a winter garden. What about color? So readily achievable is color, even with a few flowers. And like an abstract expressionist, using a dash of red or orange or chartreuse is quite effective. The many cultivars of Ilex verticillata (winterberry), creating a little mountain (if you wisely plant these in groups, not as an individual specimen) of red or orange berries. They start to slyly appear, almost unnoticed, in late August among the still-lush deciduous foliage. They are aflame by late November when the leaves vanish. For a decade they stubbornly refused to berry for me, and my garden diary is filled with yearly reminders that this will be the year to remove them. Someone (why did I not know this?) whispered they naturally grow at the edge of ponds, as mine did not, so why not keep them well-watered during the summer? Bingo! Was this the trick or were they just taking their time to establish? Who will ever know, as in so many garden mysteries – but I will put my money on the watering. A grove of ‘Jolly Red’, located near the entrance terrace to Big House where I walk nearby daily, is now alive with flaming red berries until the end of February when they start to fade – or have been devoured by birds, loved by them, but strangely, poisonous to the gardeners who tend them. Nearby for additional winter color is a grouping of the redossier dogwood shrubs, Cornus sericea ‘Artic Fire,’ ‘Silver and Gold,’ and ‘Winter Gold,’ exhibiting shades of red, gold, and chartreuse. In front of them is a collection of colorful heather. Nearby is a group of wandering Helleborus foetidus (short-lived, they reseed around), bringing more bright chartreuse color to this appealing winter scene. Not far away – and smack on our little lane for all passersby to see – is a Camellia sasanqua (cultivar sadly misplaced) whose white blossoms cover the two-foot tall shrub from November through New Year’s Day. 

When the deciduous foliage retreats, the bark of trees beckon like never before. A few standouts: the tawny exfoliating folds of the giant 70-ft dawn redwood (Metasequoia glytostroboides), a small Magnolia brooklynensis ‘Black Beauty’ whose trunk and limbs are almost white, a mature Norway maple (which I did not plant) whose trunk and main branches are draped in variegated English ivy and Schizophragma hydrangeoides ‘Roseum’ (both planted by me), and a Stewartia pseudocamellia whose flaking and peeling bark reminds me of an animal’s hide. 

When the deciduous foliage retreats, the buds of next year’s flowers on the rhododendrons, magnolias, and camellias (I am growing about a dozen here), surprisingly prevalent as winter approaches, give clues that there will be new life not many months from now. 

When the deciduous foliage retreats, the evergreens shine like never before, as they were visually subsumed during the summer’s annual green proliferation. Their role is fundamental to the winter garden. When I see and read about the ubiquitous “matrix garden” craze (for which I have no beef, only admiration, with their focus on sustainability and pollinators), I imagine those gardens in winter, never with evergreens. The ravishing summer photos seldom show the winter scene, for it must be a desolate tableau, except for a few tan or brown seedheads. Are their owners unconcerned with the winter scene? Such observations over 30 years of making Uptop has changed my approach, especially to my double mixed border. If a traditional border is now passe, as many claim, I suggest a new approach. A few years ago, I replaced in the North Border many perennials and deciduous shrubs with evergreens (yew, box, and osmanthus, and hollies, for instance). I located the new evergreens in a vaguely serpentine fashion in the middle of the 13-ft deep borders. In front of them I placed pockets of lowish perennials, ground covers, and bulbs; behind them I placed taller deciduous shrubs and supertall perennials (Macleaya cordata, for example). Labor saving in the extreme – and a delight to look at all winter long – this new arrangement pleases me immensely, even when, during foul weather, I can view it only from behind huge glass windows. The mixed border, one of the most complex and satisfying of gardening’s inventions, is not dead! It simply needs to move beyond Gertrude Jeykyll (who used only perennials in drifts) and, even the great Christopher Lloyd (who added shrubs and small trees, as in his famous Long Border at Great Dixter). 

And when the deciduous leaves refuse to entirely retreat, as with the beech hedge (Fagus sylvatica), the hornbeam hedge (Carpinus betulus) or the spicebush (Lindera benzoin), their foliage, which hangs on until Spring, partner with the grasses in providing that tawny winter color I so admire.

In other locations, Sasa veitchii and Phyllostachys aureosulcata (each of these running bamboos contained within necessary concrete dams) and the lush evergreen of the clump-forming bamboo Fargesia rufa are appreciated more than ever in winter. As well, my collection of seven evergreen Illicium cultivars and two so-called Japanese laurels: Aucuba japonica ‘Natsu-no-kumo’ and ‘Petite Jade.’

And there is hardly a winter day when I do not enjoy being suffused by the many fragrances which emanate from my conservatory. I call this 9-ft x 13-ft x 18-ft high sanctuary “Little Logee,” after the famous Danielson, CT nursery from which so many of these plants were obtained. A sure cure for winter doldrums, if they should occur, is a trip to actual Logee’s, only a 75-minute drive from Uptop.

So…. Winter! What is there not to love? Does the garden ever look lovelier?