Having done a spectacular job providing interest all winter long with their beautiful stems in shades of red, yellow and green you can’t deny the Cornus (dogwood) and Salix (willow) do a fantastic job to brighten the dullest of winter days.

With their job now done and to guarantee a colourful display next year you need to prune the stems back hard now before they start to actively grow.

Pruning hard or coppicing is a pruning technique where the tree or shrub is cut to ground level. The result is regeneration of multiple new stems from the base rather than a single thick trunk.

It is these strong new young shoots that will be the most colourful at the end of the year. Coppicing can also be used for rejuvenating old shrubs and is suitable for any of the following: Beech; Elder; Hazel; Hornbeam; Smoke Bush and Yew.

Coming Up Rosa

Rosa Rugosa is the only plant that has survived outside my front gates in the full glare of the rabbit onslaught; the furry blighters don’t seem to care for their prickly stems thank goodness.

I love these robust, disease-free roses that flower for most of the summer followed by cherry red hips to feed the birds.

Growing from their own roots unlike cultivated roses, which are grafted, they are likely to sucker but this is not a problem as the suckers add bulk to the hedge. If there is any that don’t have much substance they can be removed. These roses generally don’t need much care but can get a bit straggly so a good trim up now will keep it neat, you can take the whole hedge down by up to half.

Make Room For This Pretty One

On first glance you may think that the short stems and wide open flowers of this plant are that of a water lily but on closer inspection you will see there is, in fact, no water!

It is actually a water lily tulip - Tulip kaufmannniana Gaiety planted deeply in well-drained soil they will return to give you pleasure year after year.