It’s been a battle with the elements but Val Bourne finds her winter-flowering cherry a tonic to the spirits

Nothing lifts the spirits more than a bough of pink blossom against a spring-blue sky, so I made sure I planted three such trees at Spring Cottage almost as soon we moved here nine years ago.

They have all fared differently, but that’s gardening in a nutshell, and as I go round at the moment trying to push snowdrop labels into the frozen ground I’m amazed at the difference a few inches can make. Some parts of the border hold the cold, snapping the label off as I try. Others yield quickly and make it easy.

The first tree I planted, Prunus x subhirtella ‘Autumnalis’, has struggled here. I think the Cotswolds may be a little too dank and cold for this winter-flowering cherry. Graham Stuart Thomas planted several at Eyford House, near Stow-on-the-Wold, and most have died. The remainder just about cling on.

Mine has good years and bad. The mild, damp winter of 2013/2014 seemed to suit it better than our usual cold, windy blast. It hasn’t grown much either, but I still enjoy its parasol of snowflake-pink flowers because they begin in November and continue, whenever the weather allows, until March.

This small tree has been known in Japan since the fifth century, but has only been grown in the West since 1900. I first came across it aged seven or so because there were several growing round my school playground in the suburbs of London.

They were planted between the two wars and they shed confetti over the grey asphalt in the duller months. I can clearly remember chasing the petals whilst jets made their way to Heathrow airport, so I know it’s pollution-tolerant!

There are double forms and weeping forms, and all flower on bare wood, something I have a penchant for because it seems so Harry Potter to have flowers without foliage. It never loses its magic. I prefer P. x subhirtella ‘Autumnalis Rosea’ with its chalky pink fuller flowers, although some weep and others have more colour. I planted mine in a low-lying area of my spring-fed garden among hellebores and snowdrops, without realising that this area lies wet in winter and traps the frost due to low stone walls.

I hoped my new tree would drain and shelter a few square feet or so, helping my snowdrops and other woodlanders. And it’s amazing how a tree’s presence protects what’s underneath with a network of roots and an overhead canopy. It may not be large enough to have done much draining, but it has added scale to my woodlanders and every garden needs trees to balance the understorey.

I have also planted ‘Kursar’, a cherry christened by the famous breeder Captain Collingwood ‘Cherry’ Ingram, who wrongly thought it a hybrid between Prunus nipponica var. kurilensis x P. sargentii. Hence kur-sar. This healthy hybrid cherry will eventually make a dome-shaped tree and reach 5m (16 to 18ft) in height so its benign presence should create a lovely spectacle and create shelter.

It flowers by late-February, opening its almond-pink flowers from slim pendant buds. In warm years the buds are a winter feature from January onwards and the dark branches are also attractive in winter. Like all pink-fruited or pink-flowered trees, it flatters plummy hellebores.

I also fell in love with another pink-blossomed beauty, although this is a Japanese apricot rather than a cherry, and I saw it at a plant sale held in Sue Bedwell’s Monks Head garden in Bletchingdon. Her NGS garden opens on the following three Sundays — March 15, April 12 and May 10 from 2pm (see www.ngs.org.uk).

Sue, who trained at Waterperry so is probably a much better gardener than I shall ever be, warned me against buying due to a dodgy graft. However plantaholics are hard to divert so it’s been in for eight years and produces single rose-madder pink flowers, although always in greater quantity after a sunny summer.

It’s called Prunus mume ‘Beni-Chidori’, meaning flight of the red cranes. It’s said to be heavenly scented, but my garden’s too cold and I can never bear to pick any!

Close by is a small Fuji cherry, more shrub that tree, entitled Prunus incisa ‘Kojo-no-mai’ and this vision of white is widely available in every garden centre and so well worth growing.