Frosted Caryopteris clandonensis seed heads

Waiting for the Light

Posted on by Ann Mackay

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During winter direct sunlight doesn’t penetrate along much of one side of the garden. Photographing plants in this area can be frustrating. Even if they have a good coating of frost, they don’t catch the sun to make that frost sparkle.

Taller plants, like those here, do get some sun for a very short while, so there may be just enough light to make photographing them worthwhile. The light changes very quickly at this time of year, so the opportunity doesn’t last long.

Frosted climbing hydrangea
A climbing hydrangea is just tall enough to catch the light.

Happily, January brings a gradual increase in how far the sun reaches over the garden fences and tall shrubs, over time illuminating more of the smaller plants. By the time spring is here, the sun will be high enough to allow me to take photographs throughout the whole garden. That is a time I look forward to!

Meanwhile, it occurs to me that I should plan to place the plants that look good when frosted in places where they will catch a little sparkle of sun. (But not somewhere too sunny, otherwise the frost may melt before I get outside with my camera.) I may be developing my own style of garden planning – ‘hortus photographicus’, hehe!

Frosted Daucus (wild carrot) seed head
A frosted Daucus (wild carrot) seed head lurks on the dark side of the garden.
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Published by Ann Mackay

Photographer, mixed-media art adventurer and completely daft about plants.......

21 thoughts on “Waiting for the Light”

  1. The climbing hydrangea looks stunning the way you’ve captured it! I’ve shared with Nigel that he could extend his landscape design services to ‘hortus photographicus’ and he came up with ‘hortus frostus’ 🙂 Nigel wonders if you’ve looked at the work of Oehme, Van Sweeden? I found their website which is lovely … https://www.ovsla.com/ — the only designers/gardeners in his knowledge that care about what their perennial garden looks like in the winter.

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    1. Thanks Liz! (For some reason you’ve been labelled ‘Someone’, maybe you’re not logged into WP?) That hydrangea is a pic from a few years ago and the others are from last year. We’ve had very little frost this year, so my garden is not really ‘frostus’ yet. (Some cold nights are forecast.) I agree with Nigel – you don’t often get much attention paid to the winter garden, although I have come across it occasionally in garden design books. Thanks for the link to that site – it’s lovely and I’ll be spending a bit of time there… 🙂

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  4. Good for you for considering how your plants will look in winter. You’re probably correct that few gardeners take that into account in their planning, even though in northern climates winter lasts as long as any other season.

    Latin hortus shared a linguistic root with Old English ġeard, which meant ‘yard, garden, fence, enclosure,’ and which evolved to our modern word yard. Also closely related is garden. And there you have a little look at hortus etymologicus.

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    1. That’s interesting about the Old English ġeard – it helps to show how closely related the words yard and garden must be. (It seems to me that you use the word yard in the same way that we use garden, but for us yard has a very different meaning. Here a yard is more commercial or industrial rather than domestic.)

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      1. I’ve noticed the difference in your British use of yard. Here in the United States, the land around a suburban house is the yard. People speak specifically of a front yard, a back yard, and sometimes even a side yard.

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  5. Changes in where the light falls often is the first thing I notice as winter moves into spring. During the winter, my patio is completely in shade. When the first sliver of morning sunlight reaches the plants, I know that the world’s still turning. Unfortunately, I don’t get enough sunlight for many of the plants I favor, but if we were in a colder climate, the patio would be a perfect place for frost (unless the covering would prevent it from forming). Frosted plants are lovely; I hope you get some frost soon.

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    1. I love to see how the light penetrates further into the garden as we get nearer spring – it gives me a feeling of hope and anticipation. It has been amazingly mild here, and very wet, so frost may be a bit of a shock to us, LOL! (But it is a possibility soon because the forecast says the temperature will drop to freezing or just below.)

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  6. I don’t get much frost here, though Monday night could bring some, and much of my garden is in shade all winter, due to the low sun and a high barn. I’m not too fussed about having a winter garden as I rarely step into the garden in the winter months. 😊

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    1. It hasn’t been very nice for stepping into the garden here recently because we’ve had so much rain. But there are things waiting to be done, so I’m relieved that we’re supposed to be getting some dry (and cold) weather very soon. I’m hoping that the dry spell lasts long enough to let me catch up with things… 🙂

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  8. Hortus Photographicus, sounds like a name from the Dark Side. The sun will soon be higher. At least that’s what I keep telling myself. Every non-rainy day is a blessing right now, sun or not.

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    1. You’re right Jill – it does sound a bit like there should be dangerous plants or some other threat…eek! We’ve just had our first sunny day for what feels like ages and it was lovely. Sun and blue skies are wonderful in wintertime. 🙂

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