Winter survival

The challenge now dear gardeners is to fight against the bleak days of November in the garden. There is so little cheer available in the eleventh month of the year. In December you can plan your holiday gardening gifts for friends. In January you can play with the gardening gifts given to you by friends. In February there's more sunlight available and you can foolishly buy an orchid to love. In March the red-winged blackbirds come back. But November is a fringe month when one grey day piles on another like shingles on an old roof.

November is the time when your garden should be "meaty" like a good winter soup. You need big blocky things, like evergreens or structures to slow down the wind, provide shelter and simply an excuse to go out into the garden. Most herbaceous plants like perennials lose their leaves and also their form, shrubs and trees are denuded, and the garden is reduced to sticks, stems and twigs.

But, introduce a few choice conifers and perhaps a solid bench in a sheltered spot, and you may just find beauty in the November garden.

Many years ago on a prowl through a local nursery I found and snapped up to two Eastern red cedars (Juniperus virginiana). The cultivars were called 'Canaertii'. They are narrow, pyramidal and intriguingly irregular in shape. They have survived ice storms, neglect, and life on a very steep, dry hill. Chickadees and catbirds skitter in and out of the cover provided by the red cedars, and also dine on the lovely blue berries. In the cold months, the dense, blue-green foliage stands out against grey skies. They also provide a statuesque backdrop for the autumn flame out of my favorite plants including Japanese maple and dwarf fothergilla. With some skilled pruning these red cedars could even attain a Group of Seven artistic elegance. Happiest in full sun they are hardy from zones 3-7, and tolerate a wide range of growing conditions. There are spreading varieties and upright types and may be hard to find at garden centres, but persist!

A gloomy garden can also be transformed by the addition of hemlocks, Tsuga canadensis. To my mind, next to the pines, the hemlocks (zones 4-9) are among the prettiest of conifers to grace the garden. Hemlocks will tolerate shade, but will falter in very dry sites and with exposure to high winter winds which dry the needles. In the right location though they are loveable with soft foliage, gently weeping branches and a symmetrical profile. They instantly introduce nobility and wildness to the garden. Slow growing hemlocks are adaptable to shearing-but that seems a shame when there are so many dwarf types now available. I always remember the observation of Jim Lounsbery, nurseryman and owner of Vineland Nurseries (4540 Martin Road, Beamsville, ON; 905-562-4836), that if you can nurse your hemlock through its first season in the garden you're on your way to hemlock heaven.

Lounsbery is also a man passionate about pines. Imagine planting a pine with the splendid name 'Oculus Draconis', now that would lure you away from the Ouji board and out into the November garden. 'Oculus Draconis' also called Dragon's Eye pine has yellow banding on the needles that sparkles in the sun and looks like a dragon's eye when viewed from the end of the branch. Once exposed to that one, it's easy to fall for the lacebark pine and the limber pine. Lounsbery has even carried a Jack pine called 'Uncle Foggy' with wild, pendulous branches. Now how could you not go out into the garden and visit 'Uncle Foggy' once in a while?

Finally a marriage between an evergreen and a structure would add good cold weather refuge to the garden.

Perhaps pairing a winsome, weeping white pine Pinus strobus with a substantial bench, would warm up the landscape.

The pine would need to go at the back of the bench, so that you felt you were in a protective embrace. Imagine then, sitting there and contemplating November, or at least learning how to feed chickadees by hand.