Winter is not an absence

We adore working in the gardening world. Aside from the lovely people, there's always something new to discover. New gardening techniques, new plants, new thinking in garden design. And of course, shining new talent. We were more than thrilled when Andrew Jackson got in touch, fresh from his success in the Garden Media Guild Awards, where he won the Alan Titchmarsh New Talent of the Year award. We think his work is outstanding, and we love his thoughts on gardening and the natural world. Read on, and enjoy his take on the quiet beauty of winter.

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Winter is not an absence
Winter has a reputation for emptiness. The beds are stripped back, the borders lie low, and the exuberance of summer has retreated into memory. To some, the garden now looks finished, over. But that is to misunderstand what winter is doing. Nothing has gone away. Everything is simply waiting.

This is the season of structure. Without leaf and flower, the bones of the garden are revealed. Hedges show their true lines, trees their branching logic, shrubs their honesty. There is nowhere for bad design to hide now, but also nowhere for quiet beauty to be overlooked. A well-shaped apple tree, a frost-edged seed head left standing, the taut geometry of raised beds under pale light — winter teaches us to look more carefully.

On cold mornings, the garden feels closer somehow. Sounds carry. The ground is firm beneath your boots, or delicately crunching with frost. Breath clouds the air. You notice small things: the way moss brightens against stone, how rain darkens bare soil to the colour of chocolate, how low light lengthens every shadow. This is not a diminished garden. It is a pared-back one.

Much of winter gardening is dismissed as “tidying”, but that does it a disservice. What happens now is closer to stewardship. Clearing spent growth is not about erasing the past season, but making space for the next. Cutting back is an act of faith, not destruction. You prune knowing growth will return, even if the evidence is not yet visible.

This is when the relationship between gardener and tools becomes most apparent. There is less distraction now. No riot of colour to compete with the task in hand. Each cut matters. A clean pair of secateurs makes a clean wound, heals faster, leaves less behind for disease to find. A sharp spade slices rather than tears, respecting the life of the soil even as it is turned. In winter, good tools are not luxuries; they are assurances. They allow us to work with precision and care when the margin for error feels smaller.

There is also time in winter — time to notice when a tool no longer feels quite right, when a blade dulls, a handle loosens. Maintenance becomes part of the rhythm. Cleaning earth from metal, oiling joints, hanging things back in their place. These small acts matter. They slow us down, reconnect us with the physicality of gardening, and remind us that this is a craft, not a race.

Plants, too, are practising patience. Underground, roots continue to grow, quietly and unseen. Energy is being stored, decisions made. The garden is not asleep; it is concentrating. Winter rain replenishes the soil, frost breaks down heavy clods, worms do their tireless work. What looks static is in fact deeply active.

For the gardener, this is a season of observation. Without the pressure to sow, water, or harvest, you are free to think. You notice where water sits too long, where plants struggled, where something is missing. Winter reveals problems gently, without judgement. It gives you the gift of foresight.

There is pleasure here, if you let it in. Standing back at the end of a short day, hands cold, back just beginning to ache, looking over work that will not show its worth for months. Few things teach patience quite like winter gardening. You learn to accept that reward is delayed, that effort and outcome are not always neatly aligned.

And there is comfort too. The rituals of the season — pulling on gloves stiff with cold, wrapping fingers around a familiar wooden handle, hearing the soft snick of a clean cut — anchor you. These sensations become constants, even as light fades and temperatures drop. Tools, plants, gardener: all part of the same cycle, all adapting together.

Winter asks us to trust the process. To believe that what looks bare is not empty, that what feels slow is not stalled. The garden is gathering itself, quietly preparing for what comes next. Our role is simply to help where we can, to work carefully, and then to wait.

When spring finally breaks through, it will seem sudden, almost miraculous. But those first green shoots will have been made possible by what happened here, in the quiet months. Winter is not an absence. It is the deep breath before the next sentence — and the garden knows exactly when to speak again.

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Our thanks to Andrew Jackson for these beautiful words on the joy to be found in wintertime. Follow Andrew on Instagram at @thenewbuildmanifesto.