With some slightly warmer weather, gardens are just starting to come alive with early spring colour. The Hillier gardens are famous for their winter gardens, which at the moment are in a lovely transitional phase combining winter stem and bark colour, combined with snowdrops, hellebores and early flowering shrubs. The fragrance of the daphnes in particular was incredible.
There are clever colour combinations such as the red-stemmed Cornus alba set-off against deep red Pittosporum ‘Tom Thumb’ and under planted with evergreen grasses or black Ophipogon planiscapus ‘Nigrescens’ and snowdrops. The deciduous trees with peeling bark of the Acer griseum and Betula also provide contrast. The gardens are especially worth visit at this time of year and are and full of inspiration.
In smaller gardens, space for mass planting of Cornus, birch and the other plants seen here might be limited. However, the same effect can be achieved by careful selection of a limited number of these species to achieve as much as an effect of ‘massing’ plants as possible. Trying to replicate the wide variety of species seen here, which would look bitty and lack impact on a smaller scale. 
Jonathan Todd Garden Design 