By Andy Winfield
So, December has arrived, the two darkest months of the year are upon us; it’s normal for this time of year to get us down. On midwinter’s day there is just 7 hours and 49 minutes of daylight, almost exactly half the amount of light on midsummers day. In the Garden and green spaces, it may seem that everything is in stasis, just sitting and waiting for four months until light levels are productive enough for leaves, but there is a lot going on in the ground and within those bare branches.
I’ve made a point in recent years, since COVID, to watch and enjoy the seasons change. Even now, in the short days, there are beautiful moments to be had; taking time to stop and take them in can help bring a little light to the dark days. Here’s what I enjoy in winter.
Looking up; trees without leaves are mesmerising, they sway in the wind, each twig silhouetted in front of the sky in an intricate network.- Look down; while you’re under the tree, feel the earth through the soles of your feet. Below there are fungi, worms, bacteria, insects, life being lived. There maybe bulbs that are using this period to reset, some putting roots down, preparing for spring.
- Look at buds. Tree buds are as distinctive in winter as their leaves are in the growing season; they’re all different. Within each bud is a ready prepared leaf which developed at the end of summer, wrapped up in its scaly casing like a present; last winter I made a point of looking at buds, and noticed that they change size as winter progresses, slowly at first, before speeding up as the days get longer.
- Birds: when life gives you a singing robin, stop and watch the singing robin. Crows are cawing away too; I’ve become quite fond of crows in winter with their mischief and activity. They’re a good bird to watch for a while and see their intelligent minds figuring stuff out. In winter there are visitors from the north such as redwings, goldcrest, and if you’re very lucky, waxwings.
Snowdrops: after Christmas snowdrops slowly begin to push through the surface of the soil. They’re one of the first to welcome us back to the Garden after the Christmas break; stoop to look at them and thank them for showing us the way to spring.- Witch Hazel’s spidery flowers appear in winter, some varieties more fragrant than others; their thin yellow petals reaching out like arms stretching their colour to winter.
- Fragrant flowering shrubs: Daphne, Viburnum, Winter Honeysuckle, Mahonia, are all shrubs that flower in winter with delicious scent. I love taking time to get a waft of their perfume.
- Rainbows are at their largest in winter; the angle of the low sun produces some sky dominating arcs in winter.
- Sunrise and sunset; seeing the sun come up on the way to work and descend at work can be magnificent. The slow sky change from blue/grey to orange/pink can be a winter highlight.
- Catkins: hazel flowers have already started developing and will be hanging from trees in January.
They’re beautiful little structures with a tiny bright red star of a female flower above the yellow male catkins; always good to stop and have a little admire of them. - Evergreens: in ancient times evergreens were revered for giving colour to winter and symbolising the constancy of life. Looking at the colours on an ivy leaf, or the big bunches of mistletoe in the tops of trees, or the mystical Yew tree, a folklore favourite, with dark green foliage and a long memory. Some evergreens have fragrant leaves like Myrtle and Rosemary, a winter pick-me-up.
These are just a few things I look out for in the winter; when we start looking, we see that there is more out there than we think, and valuable flickers of light infiltrate the dark days.