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70<br />
All the colours of the rainbow<br />
Joy in the winter garden<br />
Create orange and yellow sunshine in<br />
The start of a new year is the perfect time to review your<br />
patch of outdoor space to ensure it fills you with joy. You<br />
need either strong structural design or a wonderful array<br />
of rainbow shades, punctuated by architectural forms.<br />
Planting a rainbow<br />
Aim to provide something that fits into the chart of the<br />
seven visible spectrum colours: red, orange, yellow, green,<br />
blue, indigo and violet. Almost certainly, you will already<br />
have some green, but there are many different shades.<br />
The secret is to have one shade of green set off against<br />
another – dark and light is the classic combination. You<br />
can play with greens all year round, but <strong>Jan</strong>uary is the<br />
month they can really bring the show alive.<br />
Reds for the winter garden<br />
Think about stems and bark as well as flowers, foliage<br />
and berries, and there is a feast of red opportunity. The<br />
fiery stems of Cornus sanguinea ‘Midwinter Fire’ or Cornus<br />
alba ‘Sibirica’ will set the border ablaze, particularly if you<br />
prune down your cornus in late winter or very early spring<br />
so that the new growth is pleasingly vertical. The rich<br />
mahogany bark of Prunus serrula, or Tibetan cherry, can<br />
look stunning against a backdrop of dark green hedging<br />
or the brown leaves of winter beech. Lower to the ground<br />
you might consider heuchera such as H. ‘Forever Red’ or<br />
H. ‘Paprika’. Then we have rhododendrons, some of which<br />
can be adorned with a blousy show of scarlet this month.<br />
the garden<br />
With ornamental grasses in borders or pots, <strong>Jan</strong>uary<br />
will glow. Clumps of tall miscanthus with its warm,<br />
yellow-orange stems and seed heads will look dignified<br />
in <strong>Jan</strong>uary, providing structure and colour. Choose an<br />
orange-stemmed cornus for vertical accent and dot these<br />
plants around in repeated forms to bring the picture<br />
together. Plant Eranthis hyemalis, the winter aconite,<br />
under deciduous shrubs to create a spreading, golden<br />
carpet and consider Mahonia ‘Winter Sun’, a magnificent<br />
structural shrub with yellow, scented winter flowers to<br />
transform a shady corner.<br />
Beat the winter blues with garden blue,<br />
indigo and violet<br />
Blue fescue is an evergreen grass that can create winter<br />
blues and there are plenty of conifers and shrubs with<br />
steely-blue foliage to provide structure and colour,<br />
including Juniperus ‘Blue <strong>St</strong>ar’ and Pittosporum ‘Wrinkled<br />
Blue’. Eucalyptus gunnii, with its strikingly blue juvenile<br />
leaves, can be tamed by clipping for winter beauty. For<br />
an indigo or violet hue, consider the conifer Cryptomeria<br />
japonica, which turns a pleasing shade of purple in winter.<br />
Evergreen heucheras can provide low mounds of purple<br />
foliage to line paths and provide a safe haven for wildlife.<br />
Your winter garden is likely to be viewed through glass for<br />
much of this month, so help it to come alive with colour!<br />
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