What to plant in December

Three to plant in December

Winter interest, planted in winter — the only honest way to judge whether it works.

• 
  Scent

  Witch hazel 'Jelena'

  Hamamelis × intermedia

  Copper-orange ribbons on bare branches in January, with a scent that carries surprisingly far on cold air. Slow, expensive, and worth every year of the wait.

• 
  Winter flower

  Christmas rose

  Helleborus niger

  Pure white cups from midwinter, holding for weeks in the cold. Plant it raised slightly, somewhere you pass often, or you will simply never see it flower.

• 
  Statement

  Birch 'Jacquemontii'

  Betula utilis

  Chalk-white bark that reads brilliantly against a grey December sky. Plant three in a loose group rather than one alone — it is the repetition that does the work.

Garden ideas to nick this month

• 

  Evergreen, ivy, a few stems

  One pot for the front door, in green

  A single well-planted pot — something evergreen, trailing ivy, a few cut dogwood stems pushed in — carries the whole entrance until March, and takes twenty minutes.

• 

  Water matters more than food

  Keep the birdbath ice-free

  Birds can find seed in December; open water is far harder. Float a tennis ball on the surface or tip it out and refill each morning — it is the single most useful thing you can do this month.

A garden to visit

Dunham Massey, Cheshire

The winter garden, in deep December

Scented shrubs, coloured stems and hellebores planted at the scale of a proper garden rather than a corner. It quietly makes the case that winter deserves as much planning as June.