What was planned as an invigorating visit to Bodnant gardens in North Wales, to see glowing stems and frosted seed heads lit up by the low winter sun, turned out to be a rather grey, damp affair with icy rain. Never trust a weather forecast.
It started bright enough, but driving along the A55 – the coast road – we could see heavy cloud and obliterating showers banked up just out to sea. The cloud was beginning to move in as we parked, but the sun was still lighting up the snow-covered Snowdonia hills to the south.
By the time we were through the turnstiles the rain was just starting. Luckily, Bodnant provide umbrellas – nice bright yellow ones that make it look as though the sun’s shining even when it isn’t. For a while, the rain was light, and intermittent, and the sun peeped out very briefly now and then.
Bodnant has a winter garden, full of plants that look good at this time of year. Evergreen Daphne bholua had some flowers, with more to come, though they were too frosted to release any of the scent for which this plant is famous. Colourful stems of Cornus (dogwood) ranged from pale green (C. sericea ‘Flaviramea’), through fiery orange-red C. sanguinea ‘Midwinter Fire’ to dark red C. alba ‘Kesselringii’. There were ghostly white arcs of Rubus cockburnianus, plenty of berries and seed heads, and ethereal, structural remains of grasses from Molinia to Miscanthus to Calamagrostis. Beautifully textured and coloured trunks of deciduous trees included the deep red, burnished Prunus serrula, shining white Betula utilis ‘Jacquemontii’ (Himalayan birch), the coppery peeling bark of Acer griseum (paperbark maple), and, a Snakebark maple that was new to me; Acer x conspicuum ‘Phoenix’, with orange-red trunk and branches.
At Bodnant, there are plenty of evergreens to act as a backdrop to all those bright highlights. Having acid soil, the garden is well-furnished with rhododendrons and camellias, as well as more tender specimens such as Callistemon (bottlebrush) and arbutus unedos (strawberry tree). Pines, both small and large, work particularly well in the winter garden; providing a dense, finely textured background to stems, grasses, trunks and berries, and at Bodnant, they make good use of these.
The sun did come out weakly now and then, as you can see from the pictures, but I didn’t take many photos – I didn’t want the camera to get too wet, and I was counting on the weather clearing later on. But by the time we’d had lunch in the cafe by the garden centre, the rain had set in and it was as dark as dusk, so I never got that low winter sunlight I’d been hoping for. Never mind; there’s always next year!
Text & photos © graham wright 2022