Plant trees, bushes and evergreens now to give your garden structure

"This time last year we were about to put our old flat on the market the first proper garden I had as a gardening adult. The one that taught me so much, where I made compost for the first time and cut peonies from the bare roots I'd ordered as soon as we exchanged contracts on the place. Where I painted the back wall pink"

"and strung up lights and held parties and watered the ground with cheap prosecco; where I planted a tree for my newborn son, and lay beneath it with him in languid, too-long summer afternoons, trying to make sense of motherhood. Anyway, every time I'd show estate agents around our two-bed flat, they'd conjure unconvincing compliments about our airing cupboard, before sticking their head cursorily out the back door"

"Oh, it's winter, no gardens look good in winter, no buyers will be expecting it to look nice, and I'd seethe. A bare-root plant looks like a twig, but what you lack in instant gratification you gain in economy I'd argue that there's an essential beauty to a winter garden, but it's true that some look more considered than others, and those tend to have some structure. Trees, hedges, evergreens."

A first home garden provided practical lessons: composting, planting bare-root peonies, painting and social gatherings, and a tree planted for a newborn son that offered languid summer refuge. Estate agents dismissed winter gardens as unattractive to buyers, yet winter garden beauty emerges from structural elements such as trees, hedges and evergreens. Now is a good time to assess gaps and plant structure while the ground is workable. Options include yew or box evergreens (with box disease concerns), or less formal choices like Amelanchier lamarckii, hydrangea, rose, hornbeam or beech. Most can be planted bare-root this season.

Read at www.theguardian.com