What to plant for A touch of frost

Wet, mild winters are now the norm, but with ‘frosty’ glaucous foliage and snowy white flowers you can still look out onto a winter wonderland, says Anne Swithinbank

- Anne Swithinbank

Give borders and containers a flavour of the Frost Fairs of old, courtesy of plants like silvery cushion bush, white-flowered heather and the snowy blooms of cyclamen and Helleborus niger

LEAF through your Christmas cards and you might come across scenes depicting one of London’s famous Frost Fairs, held during the ‘Little Ice Age’. Following a period of warming in Medieval times, temperatures grew colder, and from 1400 to 1835 there were 24 winters when the mercury dipped so low the Thames froze solid from bank to bank. These big freezes caused hardship, yet folk took to the river and set up shops, entertainment, bowling, dancing and puppet shows.

The first Frost Fair was in 1608, with the most celebrated in 1683, when diarist and gardener John Evelyn wrote that it “seemed to be a bacchanalian triumph, or carnival on the water”. The last event took place in 1814, and featured an elephant that was paraded on the ice; but, perhaps as a portent of warmer winters to come, it lasted only four days and several folk drowned as the ice broke.

Now, with climate change and global warming in the news almost daily, winter weather for many of us is more often mild and wet. In the garden, we are advised to leave seedheads in place not just for wildlife but to enjoy their splendour Frost Fairs were held on the Thames between 1608 and 1814 when rimed with hoar frost or capped with a dusting of snow.

Clear skies often herald a coating of small frost crystals that form wherever water has condensed – on fences, lawns and leaf edges. Magical hoar frosts are more unusual, occurring when water vapour lands on already frozen surfaces and forms a succession of ice crystals, growing into sparkling wands and feathers. (The word ‘hoar’ comes from the Old English hoary or har, meaning old, silvery-haired or bearded.)