At the end of a conference on urban herbs, a reflection is heard from one of the attendees: “Why do we also transfer to plants the ideal of beauty and youth that we impose in our lives?” he asks, intrigued. .
This thought has a lot of observation, since it is evident that, in the garden, many people cannot stand the brown and yellowish tones of plant cycles.
It is true that it is usually claimed that the garden is always green, that it always has flowers and that there is not the slightest trace of decrepitude or senescence.
And, paradoxically, these processes also make the garden a very alive space, constantly changing, a vibrant place that shows us its cycles without hiding anything, because there is nothing forbidden or that becomes a taboo, not even death.
January is a perfect month to enjoy and to learn to value the aesthetics of what does not seem so vital, on the surface.
You can start with the biggest, the trees.
Those with deciduous leaves have been stripped of all ornamentation - or not, as will be seen below - and show their naked beauty, in which it is possible to admire the perfect anatomy of their trunks and branches.
The bark takes center stage in these species, and each of the textures of each tree can be compared in detail: the smoothest, the roughest, those with an interwoven and complex architecture, those that are progressively stripped. …And their colors: from the darkest of elms (
Ulmus
spp.) or oaks (
Quercus
spp.) to the lightest of plane trees (Platanus spp.) or birch trees (
Betula
spp.).
The ochres, the brownish and the chestnut, all the sober and elegant tones, lord it over the absence of the leaves.
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If you look up, some of those same trees adorn their branches with fruits.
Not everything is stopped, but latent, which seems the same but is not.
The seeds wait for the moment to jump to the ground, and in certain species that jump is a difficult task.
This occurs with the large pods of three-spined acacias (
Gleditsia triacanthos
).
They sometimes hang with such abundance from the branches of the tree that they give it a mysterious air;
With the air they move in synchrony, although heavy.
Its color, dark chocolate, contrasts with the fruits of another deciduous tree that can grow very close in parks, and which have a very light cream tone: the melia (
Melia azedarach
).
The little balls that are its fruits are reminiscent of the finials that adorn the domes of the Basilica of San Marcos, in Venice.
They wait patiently for the tree to resume growth and swell its flower buds, and then fall without further ceremony to meet the earth.
That same land, in the places where the gardeners' metal brooms and blowers have not passed, will be covered with the dry leaves of this and other species, protecting the land, a whole reservoir of nutrients that will decompose come spring.
One of the English winter gardens that seeks to show off the colors of the bush and tree plants.
Jacky Parker Photography (Getty Images)
When you look at ground level, in the gardens you will also find the beauty of the ocher and yellowish tones of the grasses (poaceae family).
One that usually annoys the eye, also due to lack of training, is the grass (
Cynodon dactylon
), which browns and yellows its leaves, giving winter tones to the meadows.
In return, it will provide a highly resistant grass that will not need as much water during the driest periods of the year.
Other grasses, however, will also display their dry spikes, to enjoy the breeze.
The miscanthus (
Miscanthus
spp.) or the calamagrostis (
Calamagrostis
spp.) are some of them, and they can even dawn with frost in those regions prone to receiving the morning with fine ice crystals.
Likewise, the remains of flowers of many perennial plants remain dry.
One of them is the dark, almost black heads of rudbekias (
Rudbeckia fulgida
).
These yellow daisies leave a trace of what they were for many months.
They thus become a reminder of their spectacular flowering, at the end of spring, a perfect appeal to the fragile memory of the owner of the garden: “I was what you see and I will re-emerge, be patient.”
No less so are hydrangeas (
Hydrangea
spp.), which also keep their inflorescences dry—if they have not been pruned—giving additional interest to the fascinating vegetative cycles of these unique and much-loved shrubs.
In the United Kingdom, one of the gardening paradises, all these cycles are enhanced in what they call “winter gardens.”
They grow all those plants that provide a peak of beauty in this season, in many cases because they are left without leaves and show unique colors or because of the tones and architecture of their dry remains.
The dry leaves contrast with the green colors of the agapanthus.Eduardo Barba
A mantra that is repeated in gardening and landscaping in recent times is that “brown is the new green”, both in the winter and when summer arrives and certain plants wither.
The gaze should be educated to value these tones, which complete the discourse of life that is the garden, any garden.
When you see wilted flowers under the frost or the yellowing leaves of a hibernating plant, they should not instill sadness for the past, but joy for the beauty of their present tones and shapes, and joy for the promise of what will come next.