The out of season flowers we are seeing may give a lift to borders this winter, but their curiosity factor is seldom enough to attract us outside.
What can do this, according to Richard Miers, garden designer, is added structure and water and enjoying the resulting interplay of light and the reflections and sounds from the water.
"Structure is important because winter is a long period of time," Richard said.
"So when the herbaceous flowers have died down, the earthworks, hedges, topiary, walls, avenues and ponds take over, meaning there is still something to look at."
In other words a garden must pull us out into it from every window or view.
"The low level of the sun creates fantastic shadows that are constantly changing and draw you out into your garden however cold it may be," Richard said.
By applying an artistic eye and using vernacular materials and plants rather than exotics, Richard's approach makes the garden appear to belong to its location, drawing upon a framework of symmetry and proportion. The results are beautiful and have a traditional bent.
"Symmetry just feels right to me but I’m not a slave to it either, it depends on the house and the site. But most of nature is symmetrical and we as humans find the most symmetrical faces the most beautiful, and with proportion and scale it is important to get it right," Richard said.
In plant and form it is a classic sense of beauty, developed over fourteen years of design experience, drawing upon some aspects of the Baroque era, but also influenced by the landscape architects Jacques Wirtz and sons, and the historical formations of Lady Salisbury.
His gardens are not so much lined with bitter orange trees of the Baroque but camellias of Cambridgeshire. Yet he is known for the use of ribbon hedges, something of a hallmark rather than a trademark Richard said.
As an experienced designer he can break the design rules when needed.
"The ribbon hedging is not always symmetrical and can be a great design devise to make awkwardly shaped sites work. I also love using water with its reflective qualities bringing light onto the ground and the various different sounds it can make," he said.
Likewise he prefers to feel his way, applying an artistic eye rather than 'number crunching Greek formulae'.
"My influences are far and wide and designs can spring from seemingly random items, the pattern on a plate, or a rug but generally just looking at and observing the world around me."
This is his innate preference and not from training, the artist developing what is inside. It was Picasso who said that 'art is not the application of a canon of beauty but what the instinct and the brain can conceive beyond any canon'.
After years of designing, a sense of proportion is then a sixth sense.
"I’ve been designing for so long now I forget how I learned to get the proportions right but trial and error on the drawing board is pretty good and when I design in 3D on the computer I’ll try a number of variations until I’m happy with the result," said Richard.
But it was not always like this. So how did he establish his practice and find a footing? In fact it all began in sports science.
"After a few years of managing a health club I realised that I was working long, antisocial hours and that my heart wasn’t really in it. I was still young enough and without too many financial responsibilities to take the chance to try to do what I really wanted to do."
So he decided, like the Tin Man, to have a change of heart.
"Basically find our what you love to do and follow that path," Richard said. "Clients love enthusiasm and loving what you do makes you enthusiastic."
He continues, referring to Steve Jobs, of Apple, speaking of the role of a career and what it needs to mean. In a world where ones work will fill a large part of life it is necessary to love it and never settle until your heart knows you have found it in other words.
So if you are wanting to break into garden design make sure that you truly love it. There are ways to go about it, live within your means while still employed so that you can save for the best course you can afford or maybe work part-time. Living within budget was formerly the route to happiness in Dickensian times and now in this economic climate, comes truly back into fashion.
"Try to live within your means and save. Do the course you can afford, I went to Merrist Wood because it was a proper horticultural college but also allowed me the time between lectures and course work to work part time in a garden centre/nursery to keep some funds coming in and increase my knowledge base at the same time," Richard said.
For him then, work became a happy marriage, as did crossing paths with a great designer, Arne Maynard, to start a collaboration that lasted seven years.
"The meeting came about through sheer luck, a chance encounter and then making the most of that luck. We worked well together straight off as our design ethos was very similar," Richard said.
From it he learned, for one thing, about the gradation and sensitivity of having layers that lead into the house.
"As well as learning the ins and out of running a small business, it did help me understand the hierarchy between the wider landscape, the house and the new garden being designed. That’s why my gardens are most intensive around the house, drawing you out into the garden and then gradually leading you seamlessly into the wider landscape."
The influences of association of working together, can be intense. Richard admits that it has taken him some years to be able to use plants that Arne did not like, such as a camellia or Rhododendron.
Yet, he highly recommends assisting a designer with whom you have an affinity and initiating it as necessary.
"Writing to designers whose work you admire gets people jobs too. All design is a collaboration, firstly with the client and then with the client and the contractor when on site. To make sure it runs smoothly work hard, communicate and follow up," Richard said.
This then is either a permanent role that can lead to many years of enjoyable employment or it can be a bridge to when you break away to establish your own business.
Early on, Richard was at RHS Chelsea 2000, building the Garden's Illustrated 'Evolution' a collaboration between Arne Maynard and Piet Oudolf, the garden won both a Gold and the Best in Show.
While Piet of the popular Dutch New Wave movement took a lot of the credit, Richard said that it was a major stepping stone for Arne and catapulted him into a different league.
Later in 2005, Richard went on to set up his own practice Richard Miers garden design and was chosen as garden designer for the House and Garden Fair at Olympia in 2007 with good reviews for reviews the scent garden.
Then, on to many achievements, recently in March 2011 Richard featured in Clare Foster's guide in House and Gardens as a leading designer of the day.
In the future, garden designers may be using other plants adapted to warmer temperatures yet some themes remain constant. Given his experience Richard can extract a nugget of advice that persists.
"Learn what you like and don’t like, and have the confidence to express your opinions as that's what clients will be paying you for. So learn the rules of design and then you’ll know when to break them and when not to," Richard said.
After all, designed landscapes are better for their variety and their unpredictability that the changing seasons and climates bring.
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