Winter Gardens: A Season for Dreaming and Design
Ethos for gardening 2025
Every May, garden centers bloom with eager homeowners rushing to grab whatever vibrant plants catch their eye. The excitement is palpable—a chance to be surrounded by green leaves and fresh blooms after a long winter. I, too, feel the pull of this seasonal enthusiasm. It’s tempting to grab whatever speaks to us in the moment, telling ourselves we’ll figure out where it fits once we’re home. Surely, there must be a place for it.
While I love seeing this burst of gardening excitement, I’ve come to realize how much difference a little planning can make. Starting with a thoughtful garden plan can transform your space into a cohesive, stunning sanctuary that not only pleases the eye but also supports the environment around you.
Many people see gardening as a one- or two-season activity, with most of the action happening in spring and summer. But for those who live and breathe their connection to nature, winter is an unsung hero of the garden year. It’s a quieter time—a chance to pause, reflect, and observe the landscape.
In winter, we can step back and take stock of what worked, what didn’t, and what might be possible in the seasons to come. With perennials faded and borders bare, the garden becomes a blank canvas. This is the time to dream, to reimagine, and to plan. I see winter as the season for gardeners to lean into their creativity and craft the visions that will carry them through the year.
Reflecting, Dreaming, and Designing
Winter offers the space to dig into gardening books, journals, and memories. Some of my favorite reads for inspiration include:
Sowing Beauty by James Hitchmough
Planting: A New Perspective by Piet Oudolf & Noel Kingsbury
We Are The Ark by Mary Reynolds
The Garden Awakening by Mary Reynolds
These books not only fuel my creativity but also encourage me to think about the deeper connections between the garden and the world around it.
Another idea that’s been simmering for me over the years is intuitive gardening. What if we could step out of the role of designer and let nature itself guide our choices? It’s a concept rooted in working with natural patterns and the intelligence of the land.
This might sound unconventional, but gardens like Findhorn in Scotland and the Perelandra Center in Virginia have embraced these methods with striking success. Their founders speak of communicating with nature’s “intelligence,” whether through meditation, observation, or even muscle testing. I’ve experimented with these techniques myself, designing a vegetable garden one year by asking for guidance on plant placement. The results surprised me—plants thrived in unexpected combinations, and even pests seemed to play their part in balancing the harvest.
While this approach takes time and practice to master, I find it fascinating. Gardening, after all, is an experiment—a collaboration between humans and nature.
Designing with Nature in Mind
For those seeking a more concrete way to infuse creativity into garden planning, Denver horticulturalist Kevin Philip Williams offers a unique perspective. His method, called wild systems emulation, uses natural compositions—like moss on a rock or mud splattered on a surface—as inspiration for planting designs.
By overlaying these patterns onto a garden space, he creates designs that feel organic and grounded in nature. It’s a process that invites us to let go of rigid control and instead let the shapes, colors, and rhythms of the natural world dictate the design. This approach reminds me to step outside myself and see the garden as part of something larger.
The Beauty of Winter’s Stillness
This, my friends, is where I go in the dreamy winter months. It’s a season of quiet contemplation—a resting place for ideas before the work of spring begins. As I sit with these thoughts, I’m reminded that gardening is as much about the journey as it is about the results.
So, this winter, take a moment to reflect on your garden’s past and imagine its future. Pull out your favorite books, sketch your ideas, and let the quiet of the season guide you toward something beautiful.
Next week, we’ll explore the art of the mood board for garden design—a tool to bring your winter dreams to life.