Taking my chances.

The first hard frost of the winter has brought down the last of the leaves and turned the soil into concrete. I read posts online by diligent souls who have wrapped their bananas, lifted their Cannas, packed their Dahlia tubers into straw and lit candles in their greenhouses. We have a tendency, we humans, to think we can thwart nature with our nifty tricks and our diligent ways and I have done all of these things at one time or another. But I am no Sisyphus by nature and I nowadays I choose to leave the stone at the bottom of the hill, where it wants to be.

I grow just a few slightly tender plants in a small garden near the house, where I can enjoy their vibrant, short-lived finery on my ‘commute’ to work. The annuals have been ripped out and the rest must take their chances. This year I have heaped cut-down Dahlia foliage around the base of the Musa basjoo, leaving its flappy leaves exposed. They have turned purple and collapsed in the cold overnight. But this is only foliage, the crown below ground is what matters and that should be fine under its thick blanket of ‘David Howard’. It has come through minus 14C in earlier years. The regal flowers of Salvia ‘Amistad’ are frosted now too, but what of it? I have taken cuttings which may or may not come through the winter. And if not, the three plants cost me £6.00 each and have flowered from May to December. Less than £1 a month. I’ll replace them next year if need be. You may think this approach is cavalier, but if you work out what it costs to heat a greenhouse over winter, it’s a steal.

Elsewhere, the garden sparkles in the icy sunshine, untroubled by the cold. I leave the main herbaceous borders standing until February, selectively cutting down anything which collapses into mush, or looks ungainly. Anything that can support itself can stay. And as the plants dry out in situ, they stiffen, able to take a crust of frost and a fair weight of snow too. A few favourites:

I’m less confident about the Edgeworthia chrysantha that I planted out earlier this year. They look - and smell - fabulous at Wisley in January and I have taken a chance here in my cool valley garden in Cheshire. The embryonic flower buds are still holding on for now and we shall see. But I won’t keep them if I have to create shrouds around them each winter. If they want to stay, they will have to survive without my help.