Transcendence in a Winter Garden

Silver Birch Grove

While we have enjoyed many gardens over the years, to date only the White Garden of Sissinghurt (viewed in 1989 I think!)  provided a transcendent experience.  All that changed this weekend with our visit to the Winter Garden of Anglesey Abbey. "The gardens boast 270 different varieties of snowdrop (including 20 discovered there) scattered across 114 acres. Meander along the paths for fabulous displays dotted across the gardens. The Winter Garden – designed with plants that give winter colour and fragrance – also bursts with life at this time of year." 

We actually went to Anglesey because of the February Snowdrop Festival, as the snowdrops were reported to be virtually 100% in bloom and the weather was decent. Despite being a flowering bulb fanatic, for some reason I have never planted a snowdrop. Perhaps this is because snowdrops are quite short-lived in places that I have lived.  Or maybe it is because the charms of snowdrops are  rather subtle.  In any case, the lack of snowdrops in my life must change next year! The Festival seemed to be quite a draw as the garden was packed with Brits wearing Wellies.

The Angleseybbey Snowdrop itself

Parkland Snowdrops et al.

There was quite a useful display of many different snowdrop varieties before entering the garden, and each variety was also well-labeled in the Winter Garden.   We learned that the motivation for the relatively recent Winter Garden was that after some disease killed some other plants,  there were favorable conditions for the snowdrops' natural revival. The gardener built on this to turn kind of a garbage area into this beautiful garden path. In our later walk through the rest of the property, there were also many unlabelled fields of snowdrops (where we could test our new found knowledge regarding varieties).

The Winter Garden itself, however, stole the show.  The garden was filled with grasses as well as shrubs and trees with stems and barks and even flowers that provided an amazing rainbow of colors in the dead of winter.   Winter would be bearable with such a garden! Unfortunately for me,  I fear that this particular winter garden would require a winter with very little snow and would not work in Pittsburgh.

Tibetian Cherry