The snow gives photographer Zara Napier a rare opportunity in her country garden.
Snow covered Thatched and brick cottage, border includes Spiraea, Potentilla and the grass Miscanthus sinensis ‘Silberfeder.’ Rosa ‘Madame Alfred Carriere’ growing on the cottage. Trees in the distance include Betula – Silver Birch. Gowan Cottage – © Zara Napier/GAP Photos
Francis and Zara live in a thatched cottage at the end of Westley Waterless, a small village in Cambridgeshire. It is just over the border from Suffolk and ten minutes from Newmarket, famous for horse racing and the town where Zara grew up.
In the winter the long ferns look lovely when lightly covered by frost or snow before they are cut down to allow for the new crop to emerge the following spring. Other plants in their kitchen garden are left undisturbed in winter like the sunflowers whose seed heads provide food for the birds and the tall spires of the foxgloves, that seed themselves around the garden and pop up indiscriminately the following year. Other features in the Kitchen Garden are the two giant Cardoons; a fantastic plant as the large seed heads look amazing in winter especially when covered in snow but the bright purple flowers look magnificent in summer covered in bees. As soon as the 8ft stems are cut down in late winter the new silver leaves appear but they must be protected from their Pekin bantams as they find the young leaves more delicious than anything else in the garden.
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